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American 


COLONIAL 


ARCHITECTURE 


AC D 
ITS ORIGIN & DEVELOPMENT 


De 


By JOSEPH JACKSON 


¢ D: 


Illustrated 


PHILADELPHIA 


ov VicKAY CO. 


WASHINGTON SQUARE 


FOREWORD 


Some European writers on architecture have declared 
that the single contribution of the United States to the 
history of architectural design was the “skyscraper,” 
as our tall office buildings have been rather happily and 
suggestively termed. But it is believed that as time 
wears on it will be recognized that the interpretative 
expression given in the American Colonies to the classic 
revival in the eighteenth century, which is rather loosely 
called Colonial Architecture, has resulted in the forma- 
tion of a native style just as individual to this country as 
is the “‘skyscraper.”’ 

In an effort to show the origin of this style and the 
circumstances under which it was developed—not by 
trained and talented architects, but by hard-working 
carpenters—this book was written. 

It is in brief a rapid survey of the manners of the 
Colonists, rather than a work on architectural designing, 
and was intended to show the causes which led to the 
adoption of what we call the Colonial Style. 

No similar work seen by the writer has given any 
attention to the French Colonial design in America. 
To include this it has of course been necessary to pass 
the national boundary of the United States and enter 
Canada, where part of the French Colonies lay. 


ill 


IV FOREWORD 


Naturally, the small size of this book precludes any 
claim to exhaustive treatment of the subject; and in- 
stead of being definitive in character, it has only been 
designed to be suggestive. 

Finally it should be stated that the following chapters 
were first printed in the magazine, Building, of which the 
writer is editor. 


JOSEPH JACKSON 


Philadelphia, May, 1924 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 
I RO ey es fb wis wd'd devia Cae cwdevaes iil 
Ne shin es ah ea disy sins G de ele odie ee ss ws ee Vv 
MIMIUIISETAISONG fo ec. cle boa ka Saggy es cee ee eee cee vi 
CHAPTER 
IE aes TIaN (8S cad os Fg oe lw =! tig aise aces 0 ok pe cere 1 
Semrtrey eciniaerore 1700 02. 6 os pgs eae ce ee eens 19 
Pameenew england Prior to 1700. ................-- 37 
ein Now york Betore 1700... 2.4 ek eee ee 55 
V_ In Pennsylvania and Delaware Valley Before 1700.. 72 
peeeeeemevivanio, 1700 10 1750 2... ee ee ees 91 
mabieeeimitne Prenen Colonies... .. 66 eee cect ees ees 109 
re peetn ner rench Colonies. ©... 2... ee eee 126 
IX In the South in the Eighteenth Century........... 142 
Poerremetneimnd Alter 1750. 2... ce ce ek eee 159 
Peer onteviveniawaiter 1750... 0. cece ee ee ee dees 175 
Peeercers iss and GOOkS., ...2...06- 6. ens bese ees 193 
EME) ME ay pak sive vss we as eae ee 213 
ee HE Fie cys hc ede enn Wie ate eee eae 217 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGE 


First Brick Hous& In PHILADELPHIA (From a Photograph) 
NET Me si ls kee ee he wk hae ee eee ws 
SPANISH Fort at St. AuGusTINE, Fua. (From a Photograph) 
A PLATFORM FOR A Mansion House (From Primatt’s “ City 
ernie 17CROSCY,  1OSO) ovo one es ee te 
INTERIOR OF A WIGWAM IN VIRGINIA (From Smith’s “General 
CES a To 0 I a ee 
St. Lukr’s CHurcH, SMITHFIELD, VA. (From “ Historic 
RRM TIO). 86 pc kao pied ok Ade aca na eee 
WESTOVER, VIRGINIA (From a Process Print)............. 
ELIZABETHAN TENEMENTS (From Contemporary Surveys) . . . 
JoHN Warp Hovuss, SALEM, Mass. (From a Photograph by 
(EEL IE CEES aE Sm 
Scroospy Manor Houses, Eneuanp (From ‘Homes and 
mares wre.) torim Fathers’)... 66. 3s eee ee a es 
ReseccA Nurse House, TapLeyvitite, Mass. (From 
Cousins and Riley’s “‘Colonial Architecture of Salem’’) .. 
OxLp FarrBaAnks Mansion, Depuam, Mass. (From ‘White 
Pere eRe DUONG)... 2 eet ek ewe ee va 
View or New AmstrerDam, aBout 1650 (From Montanus’s 
PEE re ek pace dv ele Cea ees 
JoHN Howarp Payne Hovuss, Eastuampton, L. I. (From 
EM 0a eo kp Nb se eee oes ware 
ANcIENT Ferry House, New York (From Watson’s “ His- 
pe tees VCE OTK) oc ee sn ne we ew 
Stapt Huys, New York (From Watson’s ‘“ Historic Tales of 
ee 2 a. ee ha ee can pee ap where 
EARLY PHILADELPHIA BALcONIED House (Lozley Hall, from 
ee ee ey se ches cas ve ak Sh ml ahs ap bch an cede See 
Pusrty Hovusr, Uptanp, Penna. (From a Photograph by 
MN Ee ak nts poe ncn Roe oe ee ee DE 
SuiatTe Roor Houss, PHmADELPHIA (From Watson’s “ Annals 
I Pe ef pon PEs SE WOE Se tin woes moe lng ened 4 ase 
Wyck, GERMANTOWN (From a Photograph)............... 
Earty PENT-HOUSE EXAMPLES, PHILADELPHIA (from a 
I ED OR ST ag a ce deca evan eeeiRe ale a ins-o, 3 Ok oe 


3 

7 
12 
15 
21 
28 
32 
oo 
39 
42 
46 
51 
58 
61 
65 
69 
75 


78 


vill ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGE 
GRAEME PARK, NEAR PHILADELPHIA (From a Photograph) .. 97 
STENTON, PHILADELPHIA (From a Photograph)............ 101 


LonDOoN CoFFEE HovusEk, PHILADELPHIA (From a Photograph) 
MonTREAL—TOWER OF FORT DE LA MONTAGNE (From a 
Photograph) 5 02 004. $0055 1k bee bans eee eee 
QUEBEC—HovUsE IN wHIcH Montcaum Diep (From a 
Photograph).© s.04.60is vs os eae) oe os 
QuEBEC—OLD Hovuss wits Two Rows or DormErs (From 
a. Photograph) o..0:4 bons dees 6 2 a oe 
QuEBEC—HovuseE Bulitt 1n 1674 (From a Photograph).... . 
CHATEAU DE RAamMEzAY, MONTREAL (From a Photograph)... 
Basitica, QuEBEc (From a Photograph) ..... 74...) ssa ee 
OLD PALACE OF ARCHBISHOP, QUEBEC (From a Photograph) . 
ENTRANCE TO St. SuLPicE, MONTREAL (From a Photograph) 
WHITEHALL, ANNAPOLIS, Mp. (From “A Colonial Governor of 
Maryland”) os pos ecu ss a cess 
‘““ConcorpD,”’ Lours1ana (From a Photograph)............. 
THE CaBILDO, NEw ORLEANS (From a Photograph)....... 
Mount VERNON, VA. (From a photograph)............... 
VERNON Hovusse, Newport, R. I. (From the ‘White Pine 
Series of Architectural Monographs’’)................. 
SHELDON TAVERN, LITCHFIELD, Conn. (From the “White 
Pine Series of Architectural Monographs’”’)............. 
PrIERCE-JOHANNOT-NICHOLS HovusE, SALEM (From Cousins 
and Riley’s “Colonial Architecture of Salem”’).......... 
A Doorway BY SAMUEL McINTIRE (From “ The Wood Carver 
of Salem”) . csc eae cca ves) o> ok 
CLIVEDEN, THE CHEW House, GERMANTOWN (From a 
Photograph) ... 600s sacle 5 shea 6 oe 
PALLADIAN WINDOW, Curist CHurcH (From a Photograph) . 
THE WOODLANDS, PHILADELPHIA (From a Photograph)..... 
Mount PLEASANT, PHILADELPHIA (From a Photograph). ... 
A PHILADELPHIA CARPENTER’S BILL, 1773 (From the Author’s 
Collection)... .a0c 6s 0 6 © octane ae 
BILL FOR PLASTERING, PHILADELPHIA, 1761 (From _ the 
Author's Collection). ....... ¢. 0. «se 
Desicn FOR FrRe-PLace (From the “ Builder's Magazine,” 
W778) ons) vce s bined in yee ee peas 
DESIGN WHICH SERVED FOR MopEL OF PENNSYLVANIA 
State House (From Gibbs’ “‘ Book of Architecture,” 1728) . 


105 
111 
115 
119 
123 
129 
131 
135 
139 
145 
149 
151 
153 
161 
165 
169 
173 
179 
181 
185 
189 
195 
203 
205 


209 


American Colonial Architecture 


CHAPTER I 


BEGINNINGS 


MERICAN Colonial Architecture in the 
JAN average mind describes a style of building 
with which it is more or less familiar, yet 

that term should be used with more discrimina- 
tion, because Colonial Architecture existed in 
what is now the United States before the Tudors 
as a dynasty, passed in England, and that style 
which is now so popular for certain types of build- 
ings, did not make its advent until nearly a cen- 


tury and a half later. 
> 


In this review of the rise of Colonial building, 
we shall go back to the beginning. It should be 
understood that the first settlers in this country 
did not come over armed with architectural plans, 
er have any high idealistic schemes for beautify- 
ing their new home. It was a hard existence, 
such as pioneers in all lands in all times have 
encountered; it differed only in degree from the 
experiences of other adventurers in new lands. 


(1) 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


In even more recent times we have had some- 
thing of the same kind of history in the building 
of the West. No one will believe that the hardy 
men and women who crossed the great Plains in 
the “Prairie Schooners,” and had to occasionally 
fight pugnacious Indians on the way, took with 
them any volumes on architectural styles to be 
used in building their homes. As a matter of 
fact, they did not always know where they would 
locate their homes, and local conditions, avail- 
ability of materials, together with their fitness for 
the struggle, and other things contributed a great 
deal towards influencing their decision. 

Going back three centuries or thereabouts, we 
find settlers from the other side of the Atlantic 
erecting for themselves the crudest sort of dwell- 
ings. Usually they were constructed of logs, which 
the country afforded by its boundless forests. This 
kind of building also was strong enough to with- 
stand the onslaughts of the savages, who did not 
add anything to the enjoyment of the newcomers. 
Even a century later, settlers in Pennsylvania, 
landing in a so-called city, which was being rap- 
idly built on a real plan, were content to live for 
a time in caves dug out of the side of the embank- 
ment bordering the Delaware River. 

In nearly all of the early voyages of settlers 
to this country from England, there came out 
with the ships, artisans of various kinds. Nat- 
urally there was a goodly representation of house- 
wrights, for the immigrants had to have houses 
in which to live, and could not take them along 
in sections as settlers today may, if they so desire. 


2 


HOW HISTORY IS MADE 


This building, which was in Appletree Street, west of 

Fourth, was neither the first brick house in Philadelphia 

nor were its bricks brought from England. It is now re- 
moved, but dated from about 1715 


3 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


The ships were small ones, and consequently could 
not take either large cargoes or many passengers. 
This fact should be sufficient answer to those per- 
sons who have a lingering belief that bricks for 
the houses in the new land were brought from 
England. As there was to be found here ample 
materials for the manufacture of brick, and they 
could be made as satisfactorily as they could be 
had in the motherland, it would have been little 
less than folly and reckless expenditure, to have 
attempted to import this kind of building ma- 
terial from the other side of the Atlantic. It 
might be added by way of comment that there 
are no indications that the settlers in any of the 
colonies were foolish or extravagant in matters 
of this kind. 
vIn seeking the origin of the styles of buildings 
and of the manner of their construction, it is 
found that in the colonies the differences in con- 
struction is traceable to the parts of the old coun- 
try from which the majority of the immigrants 
came. It was the most natural thing in the world 
for them to bring with them impressions of their 
native places, and on the part of the workmen it 
was just as natural for them to erect dwellings 
more or less in the same way they had been ac- 
customed to do in their old homes. Always to be 
taken into consideration, however, was the factor 
of the availability of materials and tools neces- 
sary for the operations. 
In the majority of books dealing with so-called 
Colonial architecture, more attention is paid to 
the genealogy of the families occupying the houses 


4 


BEGINNINGS 


regarded as historic, than to the history of the 
building of these houses. In many instances these 
records appear to be lost. At the same time there 
prevails an impression that all Colonial architec- 
ture is English in origin, because of a more or less 
narrow interpetation of the word Colonial. It is 
true that in the English colonies on the Atlantic 
seaboard, English manners, styles and customs 
prevailed, but there was another part of the pres- 
ent territory along the same seaboard that was 
not English, at the time it was settled, nor until 
many years afterward. 

Thus we have in Florida Some Atenas of 
Spanish architecture. Most of it, however, is 
admittedly not so old as it looks. There are, 
nevertheless, evidences of the Spanish buildings 
in St. Augustine, and it will be shown later that 
some of this building in the peninsula actually had 
an influence on some northern architecture. 

In Louisiana, especially in New Orleans, there 
are examples of French, and Spanish Architec- 
ture, dating back to the days when that great ter- 
ritory was a colony first of France, then of Spain, 
and again of France. 

From these statements it will be seen that when 
we discuss American Colonial Architecture we 
should be comprehensive enough to include the 
styles prevailing in the colonies of Spain and 
France in this country. The Spanish architecture 
on the Pacific coast, while also American Colonial 
in the same sense, was so isolated that it really, 
until more recent years, had no appreciable in- 
fluence upon architectural design in the United 
States. P 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


aS 


There are several clearly defined periods of 
American Colonial architecture. Roughly these 
may be said to be, a, that of the original settlers, 
and for the first fifty years of colonization; b, the 
next half century, or until the advent of the House 
of Hanover to the British throne, and c, that 
which had its development during the reigns of 
the first three Georges. The last, naturally, 
showed the most regard for classic taste, and is 
the period generally studied by all who go in for 
Colonial Architecture. 

These same periods may again be defined as 
being the period of the pioneers, the period of 
building from books, and the period of both books 
and Americanization of the styles. 

As we have seen, the original settlers had some- 
thing else to think of than the erection of hand- 
some mansions. Indeed, they were supremely 
happy if they could build a comfortable dwell- 
ing, which would keep out savages and the cold 
winters, and permit its residents to improve their 
lot. Conditions, as was to be expected, differed 
in various parts of the country. Some colonies 
were begun with more care, and upon more of a 
plan than others. Thus, we see the Pilgrims land- 
ing on shores. they knew little or nothing of. They 
were true, hardy adventurers. They had faith, 
and a burning desire for freedom of thought. 
Their creature comforts were few, and not given 
a very prominent place in their philosophy. 

The entire lack of precautions, planning, and 
management which the first English settlers dis- 


6 


BEGINNINGS 


played at Roanoke, Island, is one of the trage- 
dies of history, and the settlement at Jamestown 
was little better. On the other hand, the settle- 
ment of Pennsylvania was the only one that was 
deliberately planned, and planted in a more or less 
happy situation. The colony of New York, by 
reason of its Dutch origin, fared almost as well. 
It must be remembered, however, that Pennsyl- 


TYPE OF WIGWAM COPIED BY EARLIEST SETTLERS 
IN THE COLONIES 
From Description of New Sweden by Thos. Campanius Holm 
vania had been settled successfully by the Eng- 
lish after part of it had been a backward colony 
of Sweden. The Swedes were thrifty as a peo- 
ple, but not so enterprising as the English of their 
day, and we do not find many traces of their 
architecture in any building today, although the 
Old Swedes’ Churches in Wilmington and Phila- 
delphia, both built long after English occupation, 


7 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


and said to be copies of edifices to be found in 
Sweden, were not constructed by Swedes, and dis- 
play as much English as they do Swedish in their 
design. 

When colonists did begin to build permanent 
homes for themselves, they invariably and rather 
naturally, followed the styles prevalent in their 
native lands. To this it should be understood that 
they were, of course, influenced by their environ- 
ment. In other words, they Americanized their 
architecture. This deviation was virtually forced 
upon them by reason of the changed conditions, 
the handiness of building materials, the kind of 
place in which they settled, and the kind and 
supply of labor for the purpose. While they 
had no architectural ideals to voice or to give 
materialization to dreams of improvement, they 
will be found to have met the problem that pre- 
sented itself to them and to have solved it admir- 
ably. 

It cost a great deal of money for the times for 
an emigrant to take his family to the New World; 
the voyage was both long and dangerous, and as 
a consequence we find that the original settlers, 
excepting those who were experienced tradesmen 
and mechanics, some of whom were given induce- 
ments to emigrate, were all persons of substance; 
some of them were of good family, and accus- 
tomed to the small comforts which the early cen- 
turies afforded. Understanding this then we are 
able to reconstruct in our minds the kind of habi- 
tations they erected for their shelter and their 
homes. 


BEGINNINGS 


Many of the immigants were persons of edu- 
cation, and even accomplishment, and all of them 
were persons of intelligence, determination and 
courage. It is only to quote from experience to 
infer that persons of this character had the forti- 
tude necessary to temporarily put up with the in- 
conveniences their new situation placed them in. 

We read in contemporary works that the early 
settlers in Virginia lived in wigwams, undoubt- 
edly fashioned more or less like those of the In- 
dians they found there; in New England they 
built themselves rough log huts, close to fortifi- 
cations to protect themselves from attack by sav- 
age Indians; in Pennsylvania, the Swedes built 
themselves log cabins, and the English and Ger- 
mans when they arrived were content to live in 
caves until their houses were erected. 

All these circumstances had a great deal to do 
with the formation of a distinctive style of archi- 
tecture; a style that was indigenous, and Colonial 
in the broadest sense of the term. 

SS 


There were in existence at the time of the set- 
tlement, at least of the Middle Colonies, books in- 
tended to guide the home builder and carpenter, 
and at the beginning of the desire for better 
houses, and more modern comforts, these books 
played a larger part than probably is realized 
today. 

We are able to make a statement of this kind 
from a study of some of the buildings of the 
Eighteenth, or even the Seventeenth century 
which remain. For instance, we can within a 


9 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


reasonable margin for error, maintain that the 
original plan of the Slate Roof House, which was 
erected for Samuel Carpenter in Philadelphia, and 
which obtained its fame from having once been 
the residence of William Penn, the founder of the 
Province of Pennsylvania, was based upon a de- 
sign shown in one of these volumes. Also, from 
the same sort of evidence, we are able to point 
to the original of the State House group of build- 
ings, in Philadelphia, that are now known as 
Independence Hall. Buildings in other sections 
of the country may also be traced back in the 
same manner to plans to be found in some of these 
ancient volumes. 

Books were fairly plentiful in the New England 
and Middle Colonies before they were easily avail- 
able in the South. In Virginia, for instance, edu- 
cation was very meagre, and it is generally known 
that Washington, himself, a son of a rich family, 
had very few educational advantages. Some of 
the planters in the South sent their sons to Eng- 
land, and these, of course, were very highly edu- 
cated. William Byrd, of Westover, Virginia, is a 
brilliant example of this European education. He 
was called to the bar in Middle Temple while quite 
a young man, or shortly before 1700. 

During the reign of George I, the Bishop of 
London, in the course of gathering data regard- 
ing the Colonies, sent a questionnaire to the clergy 
in Virginia. He received answers to his paper 
that must have been far from convincing of the 
high character of the intelligence of this part of 
the world. To his question, ‘‘Are there any schools 


10 


BEGINNINGS 


in your parish?” only two answered in the affirm- 
ative. To the question, “Is there a parish library?” 
the universal reply was, “None.” One clergyman, 
probably more ashamed than the others, explained 
that they had “‘The Book of Homilies, The Whole 
Duty of Man, and the Singing Psalms.” 

While it may be true that the questionnaire 
does not prove that there was no education or 
books in Virginia at the time, it does show that, 
generally speaking, the inhabitants were ignorant 
of either advantages. It will be shown that it 
was not until architectural books of ambitious 
character had been imported that the Georgian 
houses which we so properly admire today, were 
built. 

Probably no incident had more influence upon 
the modernizing of architecture in England and, 
in due course, that of the American Colonies, than 
the Great Fire of London, which occurred in 1666, 
when thirteen thousand houses, and _ ninety 
churches were destroyed, the whole City of Lon- 
don, from the Temple to the Tower being laid 
waste. 

As might be imagined the rebuilding of so vast 
a section in a metropolis called for architects. The 
situation also called for something better than 
had been destroyed, and under this inspiration 
came forth Sir Christopher Wren, and numerous 
others not so well recalled to this generation. It 
should not be inferred that Wren was unknown 
until after the Fire, for at the time he was the 
leading figure in architecture in England, but the 
Fire did inspire him to do some of the master- 


11 


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12 


BEGINNINGS 


pieces, especially in church architecture, connect- 
ed with his name, and these had an immense bear- 
ing upon the whole school of English architectural 
design, and naturally influenced work done in the 
Colonies, although not immediately. 

London had to be rebuilt, and all architects and 
builders in the city or close to it were called upon 
to assist in the immense work. Now there ap- 
peared more numerous than ever publications in- 
tended for the instruction of builders and owners. 
There had, of course, been in existence folios, es- 
pecially the works of Vitruvius, and Palladio, and 
one of Inigo Jones, one of the earliest followers 
of Palladio in England. Some of John Webb’s 
work, the pupil and successor of Jones, also was 
known, but the rebuilding of London after the 
fire inspired a whole library of little volumes 
intended to be helpful to the city and country 
builder. 

Some of these volumes evidently found their 
way across the Atlantic, but the one which seems 
to have left the largest impression was “The City 
and Country Purchaser and Builder,” by Stephen 
Primatt. The first edition appeared soon after 
the Fire ,in 1667, and the second edition, whose 
title page announced that it was “Much Enlarged, 
by William Leybourne,” was published in 1680. 
As the important plates are identical in both edi- 
tions, that reproduced here is from the second edi- 
tion. 

This “Platform” shows the ground layout of a 
“Mansion House,” and, as we shall explain fur- 
ther along, this design appears to have been the 


13 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


ground work for several large houses in Philadel- 
phia, and probably in some other sections of the 
country. Slightly modified, it seems to have been 
a popular design. 

Before the Great Fire, there had appeared “The 
First Book of Architecture by Andrea Palladio.” 
This was translated by Godfrey Richards, and 
he added to it an “Appendix Touching Doors and 
Windows by Pr. Le Muet.”’ This work, a small 
quarto, was issued in 1663, and contained designs 
of floors and the manner of framing houses after 
the best manner of English building. The designs 
of doors and windows copied from the French, 
do not appear to have been adopted in any early 
design for houses in the Colonies. Indeed, for 
the great part, they were too ambitious for any 
mere colonial local carpenter or carver to attempt. 
The framing, however, seems to have been influ- 
ential in the construction of some early buildings 
in the Colonies. | 

This little volume of Palladio about half a cen- 
tury after it was published, and at a time when 
the leading men in the Colonies had begun to ac- 
cumulate fortunes, was of value to the carvers and 
joiners who were responsible for some of the 
lovely wood work that has survived. 

A volume which probably had a greater in- 
fluence on much of the woodwork to be found in 
the Georgian houses still standing, was John 
Wood’s “Dissertation upon the Orders of Columns, 
and their Appendages,” etc. To this was added 
a brief account of the various kinds of Intercol- 
umnation. Wood was a Bath architect, and has 


14 


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AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


to his credit several very showy houses in the 
neighborhood of fashionable Bath. 

Wood’s plates give measured details of col- 
umns, with their bases and capitals, and generally 
wrote a useful and interesting book. His Disser- 
tation is interesting, especially for his view that 
the Grecian Orders of Columns were derived from 
the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem. He insisted 
that the Greeks copied their architecture after the 
Israelites had adapted the styles of the more an- 
cient wooden columns to stone ones. 

Some little pocket books for the use of builders, 
and treating of the science of measuring or esti- 
mating work, were more or less plentiful in the 
later Seventeenth and through the Eighteenth 
centuries. William Salmon, Jr., of Colchester, 
in Essex, published ‘“‘The Country Builder’s Esti- 
mator, or, the Architect’s Companion.” This vol- 
ume, first issued early in the Eighteenth century, 
ran through many editions. The elder William Sal- 
mon, published a work that was not unknown in 
the Colonies: ‘‘Palladio Londinensis,” 1743. This 
quarto contains many plates that proved useful to 
the Colonial builder. One of the earliest “Meas- 
urer’s Guides,” was that published by John 
Barker. The second edition, the only one the 
writer has seen, bears the date of 1718. From 
the elementary character of the book, which was 
devised as a popular work by Barker, who was 
an engineer, one judges that it must have met a 
real want in a country that was undergoing the 
first stages of development. A more business-like 
book on the subject was that of William Salmon, 


16 


BEGINNINGS 


the author of ‘‘Palladio Londinensis.” His book 
was entitled, ‘The London and Country Builder’s 
Vade Mecum: or, The Compleat and Universal 
Architect’s Assistant.” It bears the date of 1745. 

These volumes detail not only the current prices 
for materials and labor, but the manner of esti- 
mating each mechanic’s work, for all were not 
paid on the same basis. Thus glaziers worked by 
the superficial foot, masons by foot measure, 
either lineal, square, or cubical, as the author ex- 
plains; plasterers by the square yard; bricklayers, 
on a wall, were paid by the square rod, or sixteen 
feet and a half squared; while carpenters on sur- 
face work, paid by the “square,” or 100 square 
feet. There were, of course, detailed charges for 
joining, carving, making doors, windows, frontis- 
pieces, over doorways, etc. The same method of 
estimating or calculating housewright’s work was 
followed in this country, only the price paid differ- 
ing from that of London, or in the English prov- 
inces. 

Those were before the days of blueprints, and 
while the principal designs for a building were 
drawn upon vellum or parchment, the working 
drawings to be handed to the mechanics were of 
paper, but occasionally, for the purpose of con- 
serving them better, these, too, may have been 
drawn upon parchment. 

The first Colonists to arrive did not need glaz- 
iers, because glass was so high and scarce that 
there even were houses in England that were 
lighted in the daytime by means of oiled linen. 
This was the first material used in windows in 


17 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


the Colonies, but it should be explained that this 
was merely a stopgap, a temporary expedient, and 
probably no ancient house now standing in this 
country was so lighted when it was erected. In 
the Middle Colonies, at least, glass works were 
among the early industries to be started, and, 
until they were fairly well begun glass was im- 
ported from Europe. Some other essential fea- 
tures of a dwelling house were imported from 
time to time, but the often repeated tradition that 
bricks were brought from England is based upon 
no known facts, and, on the whole is not entitled 
to attention. Some Dutch tiles may have found 
their way to this country, and some similar terra 
cotta work may have been imported, but bricks 
sufficient in quantity to build a large house of the 
period, certainly never were part of the cargo of 
any ship that came across the Atlantic in Colonial 
days. 


18 


CHAPTER II 
IN VIRGINIA BEFORE 1700 


IRGINIA, at the time when the American 
V territories were being parceled out to col- 
onization companies by the British king, ex- © 
tended from what is now Cape Fear, in North 
Carolina, to Eastport, Maine. As a matter of 
fact this region was divided into the domains of 
two Virginia companies—the London, or first Vir- 
ginia Company, which was assigned to the coun- 
try between the 34th and the 41st degrees of 
North Latitude, and the Second, or Plymouth Vir- 
ginia Company, which was given the territory be- 
tween the 38th and the 45th degrees. This was 
done under charters signed in April, 1606, and this 
little discrepancy, which allowed of the overlap- 
ping of three degrees, or between the 38th and the 
41st meridians which seemed to pass unnoticed 
at the time when all the coast was a wilderness, 
was the origin of a century of dispute over boun- 
daries. | 
As the London Virginia Company, which sent 


19 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


out Captain John Smith, a real adventurer, got 
under way long before the other had even looked 
over the ground, as is very well known, Jamestown 
was founded long before the first Pilgrim ship 
landed at Plymouth. 

This first serious venture at colonization in 
North America by the English was not altogether 
a success. The first colonists were not really col- 
onists, but adventurers pure and simple, who 
came out to find gold, make themselves rich and 
return to London to spend it. 

William Byrd, of Westover, reviewing the or- 
igins of Virginia, speaks of the early attempts 
to settle it in a rather humorous manner. He 
said the first colony consisted of “‘about a hun- 
dred men, most of them reprobates of good fam- 
ilies,’ and that at Jamestown, “like true English- 
men, they built a church that cost no more than 
fifty pounds and a tavern that cost five hundred.” 

He thought the colonists should have married 
Indian women, contending, “morals and all con- 
sidered, I can’t think the Indians much greater 
heathens than the first adventurers, who, had 
they been good Christians, would have had the 
charity to take this only method of converting 
the natives to Christianity.” Byrd jokes about 
attempting to start a colony with “a hundred 
bachelors.” 

> 

It is not at all strange that during the first 
year at Jamestown very few houses were erected. 
In the first place, as has been related, perhaps 
few of the colonists intended to remain any longer 
than was necessary to make their fortunes. They 


20 


IN VIRGINIA BEFORE 1700 


a “POWHATAN ae ere 

=I | ee this fiate bL fa fy Rion wher Cape: Suuth 7 
-Was delinered to fam priferer 

1607 


INTERIOR OF A WIGWAM, SHOWING CONSTRUCTION, 
1607 
From Smith’s General History 
generally adopted the style of habitation they 
found in use among the Indians, a house called a 
wigwam, sometimes referred to as tents, although 
they in no manner resembled what then or even 


en 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


now are so called. It is true that the ship that 
brought over the adventurers did carry in its hold 
lumber properly cut for the erection of a fort, 
because the newcomers did not know what they 
would find for building material in the new world. 

The fact that this timber was brought is an 
indication that there were persons among the col- 
onists to erect the structure, although the workers 
who came in the first ship were not all of them 
useful, for only twelve of the party were set down 
as laborers, and of the artisans, we learn that 
they included jewelers, gold refiners and a per- 
fumer. 

All of the party did not even have wigwams at 
first, for we learn from Strachey that “by many 
occasions, ill lodging at the first (the poorer on 
the bare ground, and the best in such miserable 
cottages at best as through which the fervent 
piercing heat of the sun, which there (it is true) 
in the first cause, creating such sommer fevers 
amongst them, found never resistaunce), hard 
fare, and their owne judgments and saffeties in- 
structing them to worke hard in the faint tyme 
of sommer (the better to be accommodated and 
fitted for the wynter), they have fallen sick, yet 
have they recovered agayne by the very small 
meanes.” 

William Strachey, who was Secretary and Rec- 
order for the colony, and described conditions as 
he found them in 1618, or more than ten years 
after Smith and his band arrived, is next to Smith 
one of our best sources of information about the 
state of things in Virginia at its founding. He 


22 


IN VIRGINIA BEFORE 1700 


gives us a word-picture of the average Indian 
wigwam, and, as it was the type of house the 
more fortunate of the colonists enjoyed, it may 
be repeated here. For the sake of convenience the 
narrator’s seventeenth century orthography may 
be changed. 

“As for their [the Indians’] houses,” he re- 
lates, “who knoweth one of them knoweth them 
all, even the chief king’s house itself, for they be 
all alike builded one to the other. They are like 
garden arbors, at best like our shepherds’ cot- 
tages, made yet handsomely enough, though with- 
out strength or gayness, of such plants as they 
can pluck up, bow and make the green tops meet 
together, in fashion of a round roof, which they 
thatch with mats thrown over. The walls are 
made of barks of trees, but then those be prin- 
- cipal houses, for so many barks which go in the 
making up of a house are long time of purchasing. 
In the midst of the house there is a lover [open- 
ing in the roof], out of which the smoke issueth, 
the fire being kept tight under. Every house 
commonly has two doors, one before and a post- 
ern. The doors be hung with mats, never locked 
nor bolted, but only those mats be to turn up, or 
let fall at pleasure; and their houses are so com- 
monly placed under the covert of trees, that the 
violence of foul weather, snow, or rain, cannot 
assault them nor the sun in summer annoy them; 
and the roof being covered, as I say, the wind is 
easily kept out, insomuch as they are aS warm as 
stoves, although very smoky. Windows they have 
none, but the light comes in at the door and at the 


23 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


lover; for should they have broad and open win- 
dows in the quarters of their houses, they know 
not well how, upon any occasion, to make them 
close and let in the light, too, for glass they know 
not. 

“Round about the house on both sides are their 
bedsteads, which are thick, short posts staked into 
the ground, a foot high and somewhat more and 
for the sides small poles are laid along with a 
hurdle of reeds cast over, wherein they roll down 
a fine white mat or two (as for a bed) when they 
go to sleep and the which they roll up again in 
the morning when they rise, as we do our pallets, 
and upon these, round about the house, they lie, 
heads and points, one by the other, especially mak- 
ing a fire before them in the midst of the house, 
as they do usually every night, and some one of 
them by agreement, maintains the fire all that 
night long.’” 

A view of the interior of Powhattan’s wigwam 
is given in Smith’s General History of Virginia, 
which is reproduced here, shows the kind of 
abodes the first English settlers erected, or had 
erected for them. 

Captain Nathaniel Butler, who was Governor 
of the Somers Islands, now Bermuda, paid the col- 
ony, which came under his jurisdiction, a visit in 
1622, or fifteen years after the planting of 
Jamestown. As he had been accused of extortion, 
and other malpractices in office, he evidently dis- 
played some malice in his description of the Vir- 
ginians, but, even allowing for this state of his 
mind, he evidently did not hit wide of the mark. 


24 


IN VIRGINIA BEFORE 1700 


Although Byrd states that the colonists built 
an inn at a cost of five hundred pounds, Butler 
could not find it in his time. Hesays: “The new 
people that are yearly sent over, which arrive here 
for the most part very unseasonably in winter, 
find neither guest house, inn, nor any the like place 
to shroud themselves in at their arrival; no, not 
so much as a stroke given towards any such char- 
itable work, so that many of them, by want here- 
of, are not only seen dying under hedges, and in 
the woods, but being dead lie some of them for 
many days unregarded and unburied. 

“Their houses are generally the worst that ever 
I saw, the meanest cottages in England being 
every way equal (if not superior) with the most 
of the best, and besides, so scatteringly are they 
seated one from another, as partly by distance, 
but especially by the interposition of creeks and 
swamps, as they call them, they offer all advan- 
tages to their savage enemies, and are utterly 
deprived of all sudden recollection of themselves 
upon any terms whatever.”’ 

Butler also declared that he saw no signs of 
any fortifications whatever, although it is said 
that lumber for erecting such a piece of construc- 
tion was brought over in the first ship with the 
colonists. The log church which was built at 
Jamestown was the only place the Assembly could 
find in which to hold its sessions, and it was inno- 
cent of glass windows. Notwithstanding the first 
church erected in Virginia was built of logs, some 
valuable woods entered into its construction, and 
fitting. We are told that its “fair, broad win- 


25 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


dows” had frames of cedar, and shutters to shut 
out inclement weather, the shutters also being of 
cedar. The communion table was made of .black 
walnut. The pulpit was constructed of cedar, and 
the font is not otherwise described than as being 
“hewn hollow like a canoa” (canoe). 

> 

Even ten years after the first landing of the 
colonists in Jamestown, the settlement was little 
advanced toward permanency, and consequently, 
as has been shown, the housing accommodations 
were of the most primitive character. In a manu- 
script in the British Record Office, entitled ‘“‘The 
Discourse of the Old Virginia Company,” it is 
learned that as late as 1618 even the directors 
of the company in London had no other thought of 
the colony than to get as much money from to- 
bacco and sassafras from Virginia as they could, 
realizing that none of the adventurers had any — 
serious intention of making the New World his 
home. 

Extraordinary means soon began to be used for 
the purpose of increasing the population of Vir- 
ginia. Convicts, kidnapped boys and girls, and 
younger sons, whose families wanted to get rid 
of them, were sent to the new country. In 1619 
negro slavery was introduced, when a Dutch man- 
of-war sold twenty African slaves to the planters. 

With the increase of population there was more 
of an abundance of labor, and wigwams were 
being supplanted by log cabins, and finally about 
1632 a church of brick was begun at Smithfield. 
This church, still standing, from all evidences is 


26 


IN VIRGINIA BEFORE 1700 


older than the more romantic ruin at Jamestown. 
About thirty years ago it was restored to what 
is regarded as more or less its original appearance. 
The walls were standing, but the windows, roof, 
and certain other woodwork was missing. This 
edifice, known as St. Luke’s Church, was used con- 
tinuously as a place of workship until 1836, when 
the congregation, having dwindled in numbers, 
abandoned it. After that relic hunters, and others 
set to work to make it a ruin, so that by 1887, when 
the Rev. Dr. David Burr, of Washington, visited 
the place he found nothing left but the walls. He 
started the work of restoration, and in this the 
woodwork was the principal material added to the 
original, and consequently differs in design, al- 
though in keeping with what was believed to have 
formerly been used for windows, doors, etc. 
There seems to be the best of reasons to believe 
this church was erected in the year 1632. Cer- 
tantly bricks found in it bear the date moulded 
in them, and the more or less primitive character 
of the architecture stamp it at once as of the 
earliest period of Colonial types. It will be noted 
that it bears a close resemblance to the average 
village church found in England in Elizabethan 
or Jacobian times. Many of these may still be 
found existing in England. It is merely necessary 
to mention Sulgrave Church, Northamptonshire; 
the church at Aston Cantlow, Warwickshire, and 
Oare Church, Somersetshire. The type is the 
simplest in design of early church architecture. 
There is the square Norman tower over the en- 
trance, and the buttressed walls, and it is pos- 


27 


DIWIUY {0 SAYIUNYY 211098¢ W017 
‘V68T CHYOLSHY ‘se9t LING 


‘VA ‘A THIMHLINS 


‘HOUNHO S.AMNT 


28 


IN VIRGINIA BEFORE 1700 


sible that the tower originally was finished with 
the same sort of battlement as is found on the top 
of the postern wall of the church. This feature 
is frequently found in tower ornamentation in 
similar little Gothic churches in England, particu- 
larly in the minor edifices noted above. 

The archaeological zeal of the restorers caused 
them to incorporate in the building a few thou- 
sand of the bricks taken from the ruins of the 
Jamestown church. While the edifice cannot be 
offered as a genuine example of the detail belong- 
ing to structures of its time, its general plan has 
not been disturbed. The Gothic windows now 
found in it probably are a little more true to style 
than were the original ones, but St. Luke’s may 
be said to be the oldest standing church of English 
design in the United States. Smithfield lies in 
the County of Isle of Wight, Virginia, about ten 
miles from Fortress Monroe. 

Virginia was one of the colonies which early 
built of brick, and no doubt the brick was made 
there at the time. In some South Carolina build- 
ings, and in a few in Pennsylvania and New Jer- 
sey, there are structures in which bricks resem- 
bling in size the English ones of the period are 
found. The English brick is about a quarter inch 
or more larger than the American. It is prob- 
ably from this circumstance that there has arisen 
the tradition that the material was imported from 
England. While this circumstance is most im- 
probable it may be that the foundation for the 
legend will be explained in the suggestion that 
brick moulds were brought from the motherland. 


29 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


That, it will be agreed, is quite another matter, 
and instead of being improbable is very likely to 
have happened, although there are no records 
existing so far as the writer has been able to 
learn, which state that either bricks or brick 
moulds were imported. There exist accounts for 
the building of the Church of St. Mary’s, Burling- 
ton, New Jersey, but while they specify that brick 
was purchased, there are no records of payments 
for freight from England, or elsewhere. Yet some 
of these bricks are of the English size and pattern. 

Some of the early habitations in the colony had 
thatched roofs, and were as simple in design as 
the copyhold tenements common in the England 
of Elizabeth and James. There were several types 
of these houses. The cottage, so-called, was the 
smallest type and the most primitive, being con- 
structed of rough stone, plastered, and having a 
brick chimney. It was lighted by a single win- 
dow. The copyhold house was a more advanced 
type. It had a chimney at one end, built outside 
the house, as was common in the smaller country 
dwellings. At that end of the structure the wall 
was of cut stone, and the chimney, which arose 
above it, was of brick, usually terminated, even 
in the most lowly instances, with a course or two 
to resemble a cornice. The copyhold house had 
at least two windows, and generally displayed a 
little more architectural adornment. The copyhold 
house had a red tile roof, instead of one made of 


“thatch, 


While it is known that thatched roofs were 
commonly used in the early days in Virginia, there 


30 


IN VIRGINIA BEFORE 1700 


do not seem to be any records indicating that tiles 
were generally in use for roofing purposes. Log 
cabins were in use there, as they were in New 
England at a little later date, and these, of course, 
usually had thatched roofs. 

> 

It should be emphasized that Virginia, more 
than any other of the colonies outside of Penn- 
sylvania, West Jersey, and the Delaware Valley, 
was partial to brick for building purposes, which 
indicate that this was a material comparatively 
easy of access. The church at Smithfield, and the 
one at Jamestown were constructed of brick. Both 
date from a period within a quarter century of 
the founding of the colony, and may be said to 
have been the first indications that there was any 
sense of permanency in the movement to colonize 
the province. 

Aside from St. Luke’s Church at Smithfield, the 
best example of early brick architecture existing 
in Virginia is probably the mansion house, West- 
over, the home of William Byrd. It is stated in 
some of the biographical sketches of William Byrd, 
who was the second of that name, that he was 
born at Westover. This, however, is a discrepancy, 
for the younger and better known of the name, 
was born in 1674, soon after his father, the first 
of the name, brought his young bride from Eng- 
land to take up the property left him by his uncle. 
He did not purchase Westover estate until 1688. 

We find the first William Byrd sending to Lon- 
don in June, 1684, for four hundred feet of glass, 
with drawn lead and solder in proportion, which 


31 


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fds 


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Restored 1749 


Built 1688-90. 


t left. 


WESTOVER, VIRGINIA 
mgs a 


hows outbuild 


tS VIEW § 


Th 


IN VIRGINIA BEFORE 1700 


indicates that he was then engaged in a building 
operation, but it scarcely could have been on West- 
over, which had not yet come into his possession. 
He, as was his son after him, was a highly edu- 
cated man, and was generally regarded as per- 
haps the richest man in the province. Therefore 
when he began to build Westover, which lies out- 
side Richmond, it is more than likely that he sent 
to London for a plan, and it is possible that some 
of the original woodwork was sent over to him 
from his native land. 

Of the latter, however, nothing or little now 
remains, because the beautiful house was partly 
destroyed by fire in 1749, when it was rebuilt as 
closely as possible to its pristine appearance by 
the builder’s son, the great William Byrd of West- 
over. While there does not appear to be any cer- 
tain date for the building of the mansion, it is 
probable that it was erected between 1688 and 
1690. 

In connection with its plan, it is interesting to 
note that it follows the general design of Coleshill, 
Berkshire, England, which is attributed to Inigo 
Jones. Coleshill was erected in 1650. There are 
differences which are obvious between the two, 
but the general appearance of the facade suggests 
an adaptation, also on a smaller scale, of the older 
building. The great carved frontispiece over the 
main entrance of Westover may have been added 
in 1749 when the house was repaired after the 
fire, or it may, indeed, have been an original. The 
latter surmise, however, does not appear to be well 
founded, because it is unlike anything that dates 


33 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


from 1690 in this country, while it very well may 
date from the time of the restoration, because that 
was a period when there was a larger interest 
taken in exterior ornamentation. 

Westover has a slate roof, which is distinctively 
American, but the layout of the grounds follows 
the custom of the age, by having kitchens and 
outbuildings connected with the mansion by means 
of a colonnade. This design was comparatively 
novel in 1690, but it will be found to have been 
followed in many of the older Colonial homes, es- 
pecially in the South and Middle Provinces. A 
familiar example is Washington’s home at Mount 
Vernon, which, of course is of later date than the 
original Westover. 

William Byrd, the second, enjoys the distinction 
of having been the first native Virginian writer, 
although none of his writings was published in 
his lifetime, nor, indeed until he had been dead for 
a century. That he was a firm believer in brick 
as a building material is indicated by some of his 
remarks about the North Carolinians, found in 
his manuscripts, and printed in 1866. 

He visited North Carolina in 1728, and kept a 
journal of his trip. Of Edenton, the then capital 
of the Province, he wrote that it consisted of 
“forty or fifty houses, most of them small and built 
without expense. A citizen here is counted ex- 
travagant if he has ambition enough to aspire to 
a brick chimney. Justice herself is but indiffer- 
ently lodged, and the courthouse having much the 
air of a common tobacco-house. I believe this is 
the only metropolis in the Christian or Moham- 


34 


CoryHotp Hause. 


Coryvuotn Catrace. Corynero House. 


& Se SS BLOAT EE oe Bee bates susan | 


ELIZABETHAN TENEMENTS 
Drawn from Contemporary Surveys 


medan worlds, where there is neither church, 
mosque, synagogue, or any other place of public 
worship, of any sect or religion whatsoever.” 
Again he refers to the people in the neighboring 
province as irreligious and idle, saying “they pay 
not tribute, either to God or to Caesar.”’ 

North Carolina originally, as has been men- 
tioned, was a part of the territory assigned to the 
London Virginia Company. Charles II, having a 


35 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


very hazy idea of the geography of this section of 
the world, in 1663 gave the Carolinas to a few 
favorites, and thus started a boundary dispute 
which was not settled for fifty years. It is seen 
from the statements of Byrd, that even in 1728 
it was very much of an infant colony, and from 
the same authority it may be inferred that it had 
nothing of interest to show by way of architecture 
before 1700. 


36 


CHAPTER III 
IN NEW ENGLAND PRIOR TO 1700 


tempts at colonization in this country, and 

it follows therefore that in this section we 
shall find the earliest examples of the buildings 
erected by settlers in what is now the United 
States. 

If any one thing may be said to be typical of 
Colonial structures in New England it is that the 
material used is generally, even principally, wood. 
Other Colonies, dating later, and being situated 
in more favoring neighborhoods, did have a fair 
proportion of wooden buildings, but it was mainly 
a temporary makeshift, and not a deliberate pol- 
icy, as it was in New England. 

Several reasons may be advanced for this char- 
acteristic of the New England structure. In the 
first place, the Puritans who came from England 
were familiar with frame structures, for it had 
been only a few years before they started out for 
the new land that brick was being generally intro- 


37 


Ne ENGLAND saw the first serious at- 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


duced for building the smaller types of dwellings 
in that country. 

It is more than probable that the real reason 
for the adoption of wood for the first dwellings 
in New England, and even until more modern 
times, is traceable to the fact that lime was not 
easily obtained in that section of the country. Of 
course, there was plenty of sand, and we also 
know that the very first pilgrims to land noted 
with joy that a good quality of clay was to be ob- 
tained, which might have been used for the manu- 
facture of brick. It happens that the Colonists 
did not think of brick but regarded it as a substi- 
tute for soap. It is also evident that there was a 
large supply of stone, but the absence of lime or 
the stone to make it, left the manufacture of mor- 
tar out of the question, and consequently all sub- 
stantial construction had to be foregone. 

> 

It is now difficult to picture in the mind an 
England that is largely composed of wooden 
houses, and yet, in the days of Elizabeth and 
James, even London was principally occupied with 
wooden structures. To that fact may be laid a 
great deal of the blame for the enormous extent 
of the Great Fire of 1666. 

Harrison, writing in 1587, states, “The great- 
est part of our buildings in the cities and good 
towns of England consisteth only of timber, for 
as yet few of the houses of the communalty (ex- 
cept here and there in the West-country) are made 
of stone, although they may be (in my opinion) 
in divers other places be builded so good cheap of 
the one as of the other.” 

38 


Wavy Shay wy susnog wo1g 


‘pS9T LTING ‘SSVI ‘WHTVS ‘€4SNOH GUVM NHOLS 


39 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


The same old author goes on to describe the 
building methods then in vogue: “It is not vain, 
therefore,” he writes, “in speaking of building, 
to make a distinction between the plain and woody 
soils; for as in these, our houses are commonly 
strong and well-timbered (so that in many places 
there are not above four, six, or nine inches be- 
tween stud and stud), so in the open campaign 
countries they are forced, for want of stuff, to 
use no studs at all, but only frankposts, raisins, 
beams, prickposts, groundsels, summers (or dor- 
mants) transoms, and such principals, with here 
and there a girdling, whereunto they fasten their 
splints or raddles, and then cast it all over with 
thick clay to keep out the wind, which otherwise 
would annoy them. 

“Certes this rude kind of building made the 
Spaniards in Queen Mary’s days to wonder, but 
chiefly when they saw what large diet was used 
in many of these so homely cottages; insomuch 
that one of no small reputation amongst them 
said after this manner—‘These English (quoth 
he) have their houses made of sticks and dirt, 
but they fare commonly so well as the king.’ . 

In like sort as every country house is thus appar- 
aled on the outside, so is it inwardly divided into 
sundry rooms above and beneath; and, where 
plenty of wood is, they cover them with tiles, 
otherwise with straw, sedge, or reed, except some 
quarry of slate be near at hand, from whence they 
have for their money much as may suffice them. 
The clay wherewith our houses are impaneled is 
either white, red, or blue; and of these the first 


40 


N NEW ENGLAND PRIOR TO 1700 


doth participate very much of the nature of our 
chalk; the second is called loam; but the third 
eftsoons changeth color as soon as it is wrought, 
notwithstanding that it looks blue when it is 
thrown out of the pit.” 

The same authority mentions that stoves are 
only coming into use in England, saying that here- 
tofore they have not been used greatly, but now 
they are being introduced into “divers houses of 
the gentry and wealthy citizens, who builded them 
not to work and feed in, as in Germany and else- 
where, but now and then to sweat in, as occasion 
and need shall require it.”” In the same work men- 
tion is made of the fact that “Of old time, our 
country houses, instead of glass, did use much 
lattice, and that made either of wicker or fine 
rifts of oak in checkerwise . . . But as hornin 
windows is now quite laid down in every place, 
so our lattices are grown into less use, because 
glass is come to be so plentiful and within a very 
little so cheap, if not better than the other.” 

There still were to be found in England many 
houses of even the better class constructed of tim- 
ber, for Harrison writes: “The ancient manors 
and houses of our gentlemen are yet and for the 
most part of strong timber, in framing whereof 
our carpenters have been and are worthily pre- 
ferred before those of like science among other 
nations. Howbeit such has be lately builded are 
comonly either of brick or hard stone, or both, 
their rooms large and comely, and houses of office 
further distant from their lodgings. Those of 
the nobility are likewise wrought with brick and 


41 


aINvaf 07-UNd1 1DULH1U0 Buimnoysg 
‘SHSNOH YUONVI AGOOUOS 


ANVTONYG 


42 


IN NEW ENGLAND PRIOR TO 1700 


hard stone, as provision may best be made, but 
so magnificent and stately as the basest house of 
a baron doth often match in our days with some 
honors ot princes in old time.” 

There are, or were until a few years ago, a 
few examples of the kind of house the Pilgrims 
were familiar with in Scrooby, Nottinghamshire, 
England, and it seems that they did not radically 
differ from the kind of buildings described by 
William Harrison, in his contribution to Holins- 
head’s Chronicles. 

Here are not only timber buildings, but those 
whose chinks were filled with clay, and the gen- 
eral design of the cottages indicate the origin of 
the style of building that was found in New Eng- 
land, and may still be found there, for the ma- 
terials have shown that brick and stone are not 
the only building materials that will last centuries. 

In Scrooby may be found the long lean-to roof 
which persists in the more ancient buildings to 
be found in Massachusetts, and in Connecticut. 
There are also examples on Long Island, but they 
probably are not so ancient as those in New Eng- 
land. 

Some good examples of the kind of houses 
familiar to the Pilgrims in other parts of Eng- 
land may be found in a group of old dwellings 
in Cambridge, England. These are partly brick 
and partly timber and stucco with shingle roofs. 
They indicate alterations from their original con- 
dition, especially the blank dormer at the side of 
one of the structures, which appears to have been 
a modern change. The houses generally give a 


43 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


good idea of the better class of tenement in the 
days of Elizabeth and feature the overhanging 
second story. 
<> 

The impress which the age of Elizabeth had 
left upon England, had not entirely been oblit- 
erated in 1620, when the Pilgrims sailed from 
Plymouth to find an asylum in the new world. 
Such progressive ideas as the Puritans had were 
not artistic in their nature; it was not cultural 
desires that led them away, but their exodus may 
be set down as a dash for religious freedom for 
their own beliefs—they were not so considerate 
for the freedom of the religious beliefs of others. 

Relentless in their attitude, they were perverse, 
domineering and lacking in judgment, because 
they refused to listen to the advice of Captain 
John Smith, who cautioned them of conditions in 
the new world, and offered to pilot them. It is 
only a twice-told story that the first of the band 
floundered around for a month in Plymouth Bay 
before they finally decided upon a place of settle- 
ment. The hardships the band suffered was only 
to be expected of a party that knew little or noth- 
ing of the country they expected to make their 
home. And then, too, they arrived at the begin- 
ning of the winter season, in a land that was far 
more inclement at that time of year than the 
country from which they came. With a situation 
like this confronting them they were far more 
concerned with any sufficient shelter than they 
were with the erection of comfortable dwellings. 

It is true that at the time the Pilgrims landed 


44 


IN NEW ENGLAND PRIOR TO 1700 


and made their surveys of the country the woods 
and fields were still bathed in the Autumn sun- 
shine, but they kept on shipboard for some time 
while the search for a suitable settlement was 
carried on. 

We learn from Captain William Bradford that 
they found a variety of woods—oak, pine, walnut, 
beech, ash, birch, hazel, holly aspen, sassafras, 
all in abundance, as well as fruit trees. ‘“‘Here 
are,’ continues Bradford in his account, “sand 
and gravel; and excellent clay, no better in the 
world, excellent for pots, and will wash like soap; 
and great store of stone, though somewhat soft; 
and the best water that ever we drank.” 

The first structure they erected was what they 
called a platform or fort, upon which to place 
their small pieces of ordnance. They complained 
that they had to go a distance of about 650 feet 
to fetch the wood needed for the fortification. 
The fortification having been completed about 
twenty of the party decided to settle and build 
houses. A party that remained on shore was 
caught in a great rain before they had time to 
erect a guard house at the fort. 

The next few weeks were spent in felling trees, 
which were cut up in logs for building. The forti- 
fication was protected by a paling, and two rows 
of dwellings were erected within the enclosure, 
forming a street, which remains until today, now 
being called Leyden street. Each plot had a gar- 
den and around the whole was a paling as a pro- 
tection from Indians and wild beasts, the princi- 
pal beast being the wolf. The first houses built 


45 


Wavy 


Sfiavy BY sursnog Woig—oj-uva1 fo ajdwoxa Buinoys ‘oegT 2Ing 
‘SSVI ‘ATIIAAG IdViL “AWOH ASUNN VOORURIEU 


46 


IN NEW ENGLAND PRIOR TO 1700 


in this manner were constructed of timber—prob- 
ably split logs, the chinks filled with clay, and 
the roofs of thatch, such as the Pilgrims had 
been accustomed to find in their native land. In 
fact, we read that on January 3, 1621, or shortly 
after the settlers landed, some of the party were 
told off to gather materials for thatching the roofs 
of their dwellings. These primitive houses were 
of the simplest design, as might be imagined, and 
the windows were first filled with oiled linen in 
lieu of glass. 

Mechanics were scarce in the colony for many 
years, for we find Governor Winthrop writing of 
conditions in 1633: “The scarcity of workmen 
has caused them to raise their wages to an ex- 
cessive rate, so as a carpenter would have three 
shillings a day, a laborer two shillings and six- 
pence, etc.; and accordingly those who had com- 
modities to sell advanced their prices sometimes 
double to that they cost in England, so as it grew 
to a general complaint, which the court taking 
knowledge of, as also of some further evils, which 
were springing out of the excessive rates of wages, 
they made an order, that carpenters, masons, etc., 
should take but two shillings the day, and laborers 
but eighteenpence, and that no commodity should 
be sold at above four pence in the shilling more 
than it cost for ready money in England; oil, 
wine, etc., and cheese, in regard of the hazard 
of bringing, etc., excepted.” 

We learn that when Governor Endicott arrived 
in 1628, he brought with him a party of house- 
wrights, and these probably were the first group 


47 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


of distinctly capable tradesmen to arrive in the 
Colony. Certainly it was the first large group of 
skilled labor with which to carry on the building 
operations designed for certain parts of the set- 
tlement. But from what Governor Winthrop wrote 
five years later, there was still a large demand 
for this kind of labor in the Colony. 

It is an interesting subject for study, the char- 
acteristic architecture of the several larger divi- 
sions of the original Colonies. After viewing them 
one is scarce able to square them with the fact 
that all of these Colonists came from the same 
motherland—England. There are several excep- 
tions to this generalization. In New York, the 
first settlers were Dutch; in Pennsylvania they 
were Dutch, too, but it was the Swedes that 
made the first impression upon that part of the 
country, the English coming later, and in what 
is now Louisiana, and the eastern section of Can- 
ada, were, of course, French. But the South, the 
Middle Colonies and New England were virtually 
English in their ideas as they were in their laws. 
Neither the Dutch in New York nor the Swedes 
in Pennsylvania gave to our architecture much 
that is really typical. The French Colonists did 
keep to type, a type that, so far as we are con- 
cerned, may be said to be exotic, and such char- 
acteristics as it may have, never were incorpor- 
ated into the Anglo-American Colonial architec- 
ture. It should be mentioned that the Dutch in 
New York did seem to influence a Colonial archi- 
tecture which might be said to have been neither 
Dutch nor English, but a new American style. 


48 


IN NEW ENGLAND PRIOR TO 1700 


ante 


Some objection has been raised, mainly by Fiske 
Kimball, of the University of Virginia, whom the 
writer is pleased to recognize as an authority on 
the subject, to the statement made in an earlier 
chapter that log houses were erected by some of 
the earliest of the English Colonists. As a mat- 
ter of fact, the suggestion made here was derived 
from the frequent statements to be found in the 
early writers of New England, where it was 
stated that the first settlers at Plymouth went out 
to cut logs with which to erect shelters. 

We have, from the same authority, statements 
about the erection of platforms upon which to 
place their ordnance, and that around this they 
erected houses. We also know that labor of the 
skilled kind was particularly rare at that time, 
and the inference is plainly that the settlers erect- 
ed the simplest type of dwelling that could be 
built by such means as they had. 

It is, of course, known that when they got set- 
tled that they built much the same as they had been 
accustomed to in their native land. That is, tim- 
ber houses, in which the frames were of hewn 
logs, the sides of clove-board (clap-board), and 
the roofs of thatch. We even have authority for 
the statement that at the time they built their 
chimneys of timbers. These may have been split 
logs, as the writer imagines, or they may have 
been of hewn and trimmed logs, as no doubt they 
were in some instances. The whole was then 
lined with clay. 

These wooden chimneys caused alarm in time, 


49 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


and we have the statement that in 1631, when 
the town of Salem was about to be built, Governor 
Dudley wrote an order on this subject. The order, 
here quoted from Cousins and Riley’s “Colonial 
Architecture of Salem,” runs: 

“For the prevention wherof in our new towne, 
intended this somer to bee builded, wee haue or- 
dered that noe man there shall build his chimney 
with wood, nor cover his house with thatch, which 
was readily assented unto, for that diverse other 
howses haue beene burned since our arrivall (the 
fire allwaies begininge in the wooden chimneys) 
and some wigwams, which haue taken fire in 
the roofs covered with thatch or boughs.” 

The word “wigwams’”’ in the above statement 
seems to picture to the mind a very primitive type 
of dwelling, and could not mean the Indian style 
of house, because the latter had no chimneys, al- 
thought it was covered with thatch or boughs. 

Lack of lime or the stone from which to derive 
it, as has already been mentioned, caused the elim- 
ination of everything in the building line that re- 
quired mortar. Thus, the first dwellings, and even 
those for a century after the settlement, in New 
England, had no plaster on their walls. They did 
have a composition of clay and cut straw, applied 
to the lathing, and this did duty for plaster. Sim- 
ilar compositions were used on the chimneys, even 
after they were constructed of rough field stone. 

At first the New Englanders used oak almost 
exclusively for the frames and walls of their 
buildings, but this practice did not last a great 
many years, and pine was substituted for walls, in 


50 


D 


OLD FAIRBANK’S MANSION, DEDHAM, MASS. 


Home Building” 


ine in 


Built 1636—From “White P 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


the form of clapboards, and cedar was used for 
the shingles, which replaced all thatch roofs by 
1665. One of the earliest New England buildings 
that remained down to our time, had walls of 
shingle. This was the Barker House at Pembroke, 
Massachusetts, which is said to have been erected 
in 1628. It finally fell down in 1894, not, it was 
said, through any failure of the material to hold 
together, but as the victim of relic hunters who 
pulled it to pieces. 

New England then may be said to be the home 
of the frame house in America( and in that sec- 
tion of the country will be found the only impor- 
tant examples of the lean-to roof and the sole 
specimens of the overhanging second story types 
of domestic architecture to be encountered in the 
United States. While gables and gambrel roofs 
may be seen in many parts of Massachusetts, they 
are not unknown in other sections of the country 
where Colonial examples are still existing. How- 
ever, the many gabled houses are distinctively a 
New England type, and the jut-by is another rar- 
ity in dwelling architecture which is unknown 
outside of the territory known as New England. 

Many of these styles were the result of succes- 
sive alterations or additions to original structures, 
and were not deliberately planned. This, of course, 
is not true of the overhanging second-story fea- 
ture, which was imported from England, and was 
intended to do duty as a shelter for the first floor. 
In Pennsylvania the problem was attacked in an- 
other and equally typical manner. Sette 

At Dedham, Massachusetts, still stands the 


52 


IN NEW ENGLAND PRIOR TO 1700 


Fairbanks House, which was built in 1636, and, 
consequently the oldest dwelling house existing in 
the United States, that is, of English origin. This 
is an example of the clapboard structure, and is 
also another interesting specimen of the longevity 
of the woods used in these early structures. There 
is no sign of paint upon the exterior, and yet the 
old boards, which are of the crudest manufacture, 
being in fact real “‘clove-boards,” are in good con- 
dition. 

In New England of the present time, one is 
delighted by the sight of so many well-preserved 
and carefully painted houses, but it is not gen- 
erally recognized that the early settlers did not 
paint the exteriors of their houses, and, on ac- 
count of the scarcity of lime, of course, did not 
cover them with white-wash, as was done further 
south. The Fairbanks House is built of white 
pine, and as a consequence has been one of the 
chief exhibits of the White Pine Bureau, which is 
established to increase the sale of that wood. 

During the period with which this chapter is 
concerned, building mainly was confined to houses 
in which the settlers dwelt, and to outbuildings, 
in which they kept their implements of agricul- 
ture. Around each house usually was a large plot 
of ground, in which flourished fruit trees, and on 
part of which a kitchen garden was maintained, 
for it should be remembered that the present day 
cities in New England, such of them as were 
started at all, were the merest towns, or settle- 
ments. It was not a period when architecture of 
an artistic nature was even considered, least of 


53 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


all by the type of men who settled New England, 
who were Puritans in all that word implies. They 
were severe not only in their rules of conduct, but 
in their tastes, and it will be understood that in 
such a field there was no room for art to flourish, 
to say nothing of existing. 

Viewed in the Twentieth Century such examples 
of the age as remain interest us only because of 
their quaint character, for it is not convenient, 
comfortable, nor artistic, although viewed in its 
natural setting, with the ancient trees surrounding 
the old houses there is something inviting about 
it all to the traveler. There also are suggestions 
for the architect and many of the rude bits of 
architecture, the work of a Seventeenth Century 
carpenter without any artistic training, but skilled 
in the use of his tools, and a knowledge of con- 
struction, are being adapted to modern uses very 
successfully. 


54 


CHAPTER IV 
IN NEW YORK BEFORE 1700 


HILE the Southern colonies usually erect- 

\\/ ed a church, in New England we find 

the communities built a meeting house 
as soon as the population was of sufficient size. 
The New England Meeting House differed, not 
only in architecture from the ecclesiastical edifi- 
ces erected in the other Colonies, but in the use of 
materials. Thus, in Dedham and Medfield, Mass- 
achusetts, for instance, which were typical of 
other small towns in the first half of the Seven- 
teenth century, meeting houses of frame were 
erected. We have the size of the meeting house 
of the former place, and we have the price of that 
which was erected in Medfield. 

The first meeting house in Medfield was erected 
about the year 1653, and is supposed to have 
been based upon the dimensions of that in Ded- 
ham. The latter was thirty-six feet long, twenty 
feet wide, and twelve feet high to its thatched 
roof. It cost forty pounds. The meeting house 


DO 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


was all that its name implied. It was virtually 
the church on Sundays, and the place of every 
popular assemblage, including the fountain of all 
home legislation on other days of the week. It 
will be recalled that the New England Town Meet- 
ing was one of the earliest methods of local gov- 
ernment we had in this country, and it is re- 
garded as the basis of many of our democratic 
governmental ideas. 

Naturally, such a structure was of the plainest 
style of architecture, but it seems that these meet- 
ing houses did boast of board flooring, which was 
something the earliest churches erected in the 
Colonies did not have. There is to be found in 
the town records for 1675 an entry to the effect 
that the walls of the Meeting House were shingled, 
and we also learn from the same authority that 
gates were made for it. 

Like the dwellings in New England of this pe- 
riod there were additions made from time to time 
to the original structure, thus, in 1665 we find 
that 16 shillings a thousand were being paid John 
Pratt and Robert Mason to shingle the new end 
of the meeting house. At this time, however, 
glass was used in the building, for there is an 
entry of one pound, fifteen shillings being paid 
for that material. 

Reference to “a gallery with two seats on the 
side of the meeting house from one end gallery 
to the other,” which is found in the records under 
the year 1659, might give an impression of a 
much larger structure than really was the case. 
It has been suggested with good reason, that these 


56 


IN NEW YORK BEFORE 1700 


galleries were merely raised platforms above the 
level of the floor, because in a structure only 
twelve feet high, the modern idea of a gallery 
would be an incongruity. 

In Hingham, Massachusetts, there still stands 
a large, square-planned, two-and-a-half-story 
frame building, known as “Old Ship” church, and, 
more correctly, the Old Hingham Meeting House, 
said to have been erected in 1681. It is sur- 
mounted by a gallery and cupola and, if all of it 
as we see it today is the original structure, which 
seems to be doubtful, it may be said to have been 
one of the most ambitious structures erected in 
the Colonies up to that time. The walls rest upon 
a foundation of stone, and the square design of 
the whole building, is carried out even to the roof, 
which is four-sided. As this building also is built 
of white pine, it is another happy illustration of 
the longevity of that wood. 

ay 

There is a close connection in the early history 
of both Connecticut and New York. It is per- 
fectly true that the latter was settled at least ten 
years before the former and it is equally true that 
the present site of New York City was visited 
long before the first ship full of Pilgrims landed 
in New England. 

Both the Plymouth Company and the Dutch 
West India Company claimed parts of the same 
territory, and it is a fact that Long Island was 
agreeably portioned out between the two until the 
English captured the New Netherlands and all 
of the Colonies became English. 


57 


ILOT ‘snuniuopy snpiousy fo 
0991 LOOGV ‘HOUNHO AGNV 


‘DYWIWY UNA YOULIAlLLLYIIIgT OY. WOLT 
LYOL ONIMOHS ‘NVGUGLSNV MAN 


58 


IN NEW YORK BEFORE 1700 


So far as is known the first buildings erected 
in what is now Connecticut were mere log struc- 
tures built for the fur trade. The Dutch built the 
first one at what now is Hartford, and had even 
erected a fortification there. This circumstance 
did not prevent the Plymouth men from Massa- 
chusetts from boldly entering the domain and 
engaging in the fur trade which they also found 
profitable. 

The first English settlement in Connecticut was 
planted at Windsor, on the Connecticut River in 
1633, and no doubt, since it followed the Dutch 
occupation, had been partly inspired by the suc- 
cess of the Dutch traders there. A stronger reason 
was the desire to set up an independent state. 

According to Governor Bradford’s account, the 
first house erected in Connecticut was what is now 
being advertised as “‘ready-cut.” In other words, 
the material for erecting the building was cut to 
size, and then carried up the Connecticut River 
to the place of settlement, where it was assembled. 

From the Governor’s History of the Plimouth 
Plantation, we are informed how both the Massa- 
chusetts or Plymouth men, and the Dutch made a, 
rush for the possession of the territory. In his 
quaint way, he relates: 

“But ye Dutch (begane now to repente) and 
hearing of their purpose & preparation indeoured 
to preuent them; and gott in a litle before them, 
and made a slight forte, and planted 2 peeces of 
ordnance, thretening to stopp their passage. But 
they haueing made a smale frame of a house ready, 
and haueing a great new-barke they stowed their 


d9 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


frame in her hold, & bords to couer & finishe it, 
hauing nayles, & all other prouisions fitting for 
their use * * * When they came up the river, 
the dutch demanded what they intended, and 
whiter they would goe, they answered up the river 
to trade. * * * So they passed along, and 
though the dutch threatened them hard, yet they 
shoot not, coming to their place, they clapt up 
their house quickly and landed their prouissions, 
and left ye companie appoynted, and sent the 
barke home, and afterwards palisadoed their 
house aboute, and fortified them selues better.” 

In the Eastern part of Long Island, which orig- 
inally was settled by the Connecticut men, there 
still exist some early examples of English archi- 
tecture such as is found in New England. As 
might be imagined in style or structure they do 
not differ greatly from what is to be found in 
Massachusetts. The lean-to roofs, and the primi- 
tive shingle walls are characteristic features, but 
they, of course, are no more typical of Connecticut 
than they are of the rest of earliest New England. 

One of the best known of these examples is the 
John Howard Payne house, so-called, at East- 
hampton. The poet and playwright was not born 
in this house, as is sometimes believed, but there 
does not appear to be any reason to doubt the 
statement that he lived in it as a child. This style 
of house was continued in that locality for a cen- 
tury later than the Payne home, which is believed 
to date from about 1660, or at a period when that 
part of Long Island was still governed by Con- 
necticut. © 


60 


099T 


LING ‘I “I ‘NOLANVHISVA “ASNOH ANAVd GUVMOH NHOL 


61 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 
> 


As early as 1613 there was a trading post at 
the lower end of Manhattan Island, and this may 
be said to have been the beginning of the Metrop- 
olis. Next to nothing definite is known of the 
character of this post, but it has been assumed 
by other writers that the traders, who were Dutch, 
built themselves huts, and probably stockaded 
themselves as a protection against hostile natives. 

Even Dutch authority has admitted that the 
Dutch were squatters, and that the West India 
Company had no right to what it was pleased to 
call the New Netherlands. Certainly the first 
parties to arrive and settle in New Amsterdam 
were no more real settlers or colonists than were 
those adventurers who a few years before founded 
Jamestown. So far as can be learned the party con- 
sisted only of men, many of them employees of 
the Dutch West India Company, who were sent 
out to gather in valuable furs. There was no 
intention of viewing America in any other light 
than as a vast treasure trove, which was to be 
worked for all it was worth. They had no inten- 
tion of giving anything to America, but came for 
the purpose of making money for the stockholders. 

Indeed, the company was not really established 
until 1621, when it received a charter that virtu- 
ally gave to it the whole world to do business in, 
regardless of whose world it was. The earliest 
traders had been doing business more or less on 
their own account, or rather on a commission basis 
with the Netherlands Government, and they had 
even less regard for the new country than had the 
company when it was established by law. 

62 


Prev YORK BEFORE 1700 


With conditions such as these one could not 
expect to find anything of value in the architec- 
ture of the buildings erected for the use of the 
small parties that settled in New Amsterdam. 


That part of the company which was not in- 
timately concerned with gathering furs in the 
neighborhood of New Amsterdam, was virtually 
plying the trade of buccanneers, in levying on the 
rich Spanish ships that passed to and fro be- 
tween Europe and Spain’s golden empire in Amer- 
ica. Of course, the Netherlands Government man- 
aged to take the lion’s share of this enterprise. 


It was not until 1623 that the first Dutch Col- 
onists began to appear in this part of the world. 
In that year a vessel of 130 tons, named the New 
Netherland, with thirty families, mostly Walloons, 
on board were brought over to settle the country. 
A part of this living cargo was landed in New 
Amsterdam, and the remainder on the South or 
Delaware River. These Walloons were the kind 
of stuff that colonists are made, for they, like the 
Pilgrims of Plymouth, were fleeing from the re- 
ligious intolerance of Europe, and intended to 
make the new country their future home. 

> 

From the evidence of the earliest known view 
of New Amsterdam, it would appear that the most 
magnificent structure to be found there in 16380, 
or seven years after the first real colonists ar- 
rived, was a fort, which was laid out according 
to the plan which found so much favor in Europe 
in the period just after the Middle Ages. It was 


63 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


no mere stockade, but an engineering work, and 
seems to have been more powerful than was re- 
quired in a land where the savages were neither 
numerous nor supplied with ordnance. But the 
Dutch built strongly as they did everything else 
completely, and the fortification undoubtedly was 
designed with a view to visits of hostile fleets 
which might attempt to oust them. 

High peaked roofs were characteristic of the 
buildings erected in New Amsterdam. At first 
the structures were of wood, but as the buildings 
were greater in height than those erected any- 
where else in the Colonies until after the Revolu- 
tion, stone and brick became the favored building 
materials. 

Contemporary evidence of the character of the 
early buildings in New York is if anything more 
abundant than it is about many of the other early 
settlements. Those writers who mentioned the 
subject at all, appear to have been impressed by 
the fact that frame structures were not in the 
majority, as was the case in New England, where 
virtually every building for a hundred years aiter 
the first settlement was constructed of wood. 

Buildings of four and five stories in height 
were no novelty in the cities of Holland, and struc- 
tures of brick and stone were universal there, con- 
sequently when the Dutch began to build in New 
Amsterdam, naturally, excepting for temporary 
structures or those of small importance, they used 
similar materials. They also brought here an- 
other style of construction. Where the New Eng- 
land houses had their front doors planted in the 


64 


IN NEW YORK BEFORE 1700 


long side of the house, the Dutch used their gable 
ends for their entrances, and presented that end 
of the building to the street. A group of their 
houses, therefore, presented a view that was novel 
not only here but to such as had lived in England, 
whose building construction methods were closely 
followed by colonists elsewhere in the country. 

In order to foster colonization, the West India 
Company had its charter altered to permit a grant 


ANCIENT FERRY HOUSE, NEW YORK, IN 1832 
From Watson’s Historic Tales of New York 


of territory to any one who would bring over fifty 
colonists and arrange their settlement in New 
Netherland. The directors of the company ap- 
pear to have absorbed the privilege, and tmme- 
diately established the Patroon system, a relic of 
feudal days, in the new country. These landlords 
built frame houses for their tenants, and rough 
stone houses for their overseers, or agents, neither 


65 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


being of especial significance architecturally. 
One of the earliest travelers to leave an ac- 
count of the state of New Netherland in its early 
days, was the Jesuit Father, Isaac Jogues, a 
French missionary, who in 1642-43 found his way 
into the New Netherland in escaping from hostile 


Indians. Of the fort that had been erected at 


what is now New York City, he said, “It has four 
regular bastions mounted with several pieces of 
artillery. All of these bastions and all of the cur- 
tains were in 1643 but ramparts of earth, most 
of which had crumbled away, so that the fort 
could be entered on all sides.”’” But he added that, 
“They were beginning to face the gates and bas- 
tions with stone. Within this fort stood a pretty 
large church built of stone; the house of the Gov- 
ernor, whom they call the Director General, quite 
neatly built of brick, the store houses and bar- 
Tacks. 

“The first comers,” according to the same au- 
thority, “found lands fit for use, formerly cleared 
by the savages who previously had fields here. 
Those who came later have cleared in the woods, 
which are mostly of oak. * * * There are 
some houses built of stone; they make lime of 
oyster shells, great heaps of which are found here 
made formerly by the savages who subsisted in 
part by this fishery.” 

Father Jogues found the settlement up the 
River, then called Renselaerswick, the colony of 
Renselaer, a rich Amsterdam merchant, one of 
the Patroons, dominated by a wretched log. fort. 
About a hundred persons dwelt in this domain, 


66 


’ 


IN NEW YORK BEFORE 1700 


which contained between twenty-five and thirty 
houses. ‘All their houses,” he adds, “are merely 
of boards and thatched. As yet there is no mason 
work, except in the chimneys. The forests fur- 
nishing many large pines, they make boards by 
means of their mills which they have for the pur- 
pose.” 

Being a thrifty, careful, orderly people, the 
Dutch, when they attempted to speed colonization, 
took means which today would be regarded as 
modern. No other colonizing agency of the time 
issued such detailed and instructive material as 
did the West India Company. Other parts of the 
country published tracts, the West India Company 
published information that was direct, and help- 
ful. 

For instance, a part of the pamphlet issued 
under the name of Cornelius Van Tienhoven, Sec- 
retary of the Province, in 1650, entitled “Informa- 
tion Relative to Taking up Land in New Nether- 
land, in the Form of Colonies or Private Bower- 
ies,” devotes one section to buildings. This is 
headed: “Of the building of houses at first.”’ Here 
are a few quotations from it: 

“Before beginning to build, it will above all 
things be necessary to select a well located spot, 
either on some river or bay, suitable for the set- 
tlement of a village or hamlet. * * * This ham- 
let can be fenced all around with high palisades 
or long boards and closed with gates, which is 
advantageous in case of attack by the natives who 
heretofore used to exhibit their insolence in new 
plantations. 


67 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


“Those in New Netherland and especially in 
New England, who have no means to build farm 
houses at first according to their wishes, dig a 
square pit in the ground, cellar fashion, 6 or 7 
feet deep, as long and as broad as they think 
proper, case the earth inside with wood all around 
the wall, and line the wood with bark of trees or 
something else to prevent the caving in of the 
earth. 

“Floor this cellar with plank and wainscot it 
overhead for a ceiling, raise a roof of spars clear 
up and cover the spars with bark or green sods, 
so that they can live dry and warm in these houses 
with their entire families for two, three and four 
years, it being understood that partitions are run 
through those cellars which are adapted to the size 
of the family. 

“The wealthy and principal men in New Eng- 
land, in the beginning of the Colonies, commenced 
their first dwelling houses in this fashion for two 
reasons; firstly, in order not to waste building and 
not to want food for next season; secondly, in 
order not to discourage poorer laboring people 
whom they brought over in numbers from Father- 
land. In the course of three or four years when 
the country became adapted to agriculture, they 
built themselves handsome houses, spending on 
them several thousands. 

“After the houses are built in the above de- 
scribed manner or otherwise, according to each 
person’s means and fancy, gardens are made, and 
planted in season with all sorts of pot herbs, prin- 
cipally parsnips, carrots and cabbage, which bring 


68 


IN NEW YORK BEFORE 1700 


great plenty into the husbandman’s dwelling.” 

In 1642 a city tavern was erected in New Am- 
sterdam, but it was more than an inn as its name 
might suggest; it was a town hall or City Hall, 
and indeed, it was generally known as the Stadt 
Huys. This structure, according to various rep- 
resentations of it, was erected more in keeping 
with the English manner, having its entrance on 
what we call the facade, instead of in the gable 


STADT HUYS, NEW YORK, BUILT 1642, REMOVED 1700 
From Watson’s Historic Tales of New York 


walls. One picture of it shows it as a four and a 
half story building, while another view gives it 
as a three and a half story structure, the roof 
beginning really over the second story, and the 
remaining stories lighted by dormers. As the 
structure was removed about the year 1700 one 
must take any picture of it with reservations, al- 
though it is probable that it was three and a half 
stories in height. 69 ; 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


As early as 1647 the Director General and the 
Councillors of New Netherland made an effort 
to correct the indiscriminate building of offensive 
structures, and for the purpose appointed a sur- 
veyor of buildings. This office probably would 
nowadays be called a Building Inspector, and this 
official issued permission to build according to 
rules adopted. 

The following year the Government directed its 
attention to the wooden chimneys, and voted for 
their abolition. The Rule ran: ‘Whereas, the 
danger of fire is greater as the number of houses 
increase here, in New Amsterdam; and Whereas 
the greater number of them are built of Wood and 
covered with Reeds, together with the fact that 
some houses have Wooden Chimnies, which are 
very dangerous, * * * they therefore inter- 
dict that from this time forth, no wooden or Plat- 
ted chimnies shall be permitted to be built.” 

By the year 1658, the Government discovered 
that many persons were holding desirable lands 
without improving them, thereby avoiding taxes 
while they waited for a raise in values, therefore 
it was ordained that these must either build on 
their lands or pay a stated tax. Whether this law 
had the result of increasing building operations 
is not known. 

Many laws were passed describing the kinds 
of structures that were not allowed, but examina- 
tion shows that all of these were influenced by an 
effort to protect the settlement from a dangerous 
fire. While stone chimneys were erected on the 
early houses built further up the Hudson River, 


70 


IN NEW YORK BEFORE 1700 


it seems that it was a generation before the last 
of the wooden chimneys were banished from the 
city. 

Excepting for the earliest of the structures 
erected in New Amsterdam, the buildings by the 
middle of the Seventeenth century had roofs of 
tile. There were some of flag, which was con- 
demned along with wooden chimneys. Writing 
in 1832 John F. Watson said that there then were 
standing in New York City only four or five 
houses of Dutch construction, and he gives a pic- 
ture of several of these in the neighborhood of 
Broad and Garden Streets, one of them the an- 
cient Ferry House. This picture is one of the few 
that bears some evidence of authority. 


71 


CHAPTER V 
IN PENNSYLVANIA BEFORE 1700 


ments left upon the Delaware River was com- 
pletely obliterated by the Swedish colonists 
who succeeded them. At no time were the Dutch 
very numerous, because before they had had an 
opportunity to establish themselves, the first set- 
tlers were destroyed by the Indians, and those 
who later made attempts to colonize found them- 
selves in dispute with the Swedes, who were the 
first real settlers along the Delaware River. As 
during the Dutch domination of that part of the 
country it was merely regarded as a part of the 
New Netherlands, it may be assumed that such 
structures as were erected by the Dutch, and so 
far as we have any records they did not extend 
much beyond the fortifications at several points, 
all of them of wood, were similar to those erected 
in Manhattan or along the Hudson River. 
Nothing of Swedish architecture survives to 
this time, excepting two churches—the old Church 
in Weccacoe, Philadelphia, which was erected be- 


12 


S men impression as the earliest Dutch settle- 


IN PENNSYLVANIA BEFORE 1700 


tween 1698 and 1700, and consequently long after 
the establishment of the English rule there, and 
the Swede’s Church in Wilmington, Delaware, 
which was erected prior to the one in Philadelphia, 
and by the same builders, although the two struc- 
tures differ in detail and even in the materials 
used. It has been claimed that they followed the 
design of church buildings in Sweden. 


We have evidence of the strongest character to 
substantiate the statement that the first Swedes 
along the Delaware built themselves log houses. 
This was very natural, for they had come from a 
land where log construction was a- recognized 
building feature, and where even churches were 
so built, although even the Swedes when they ar- 
rived found it convenient to adopt the ready form 
of the Indian wigwam, until they could cut trees 
and build more substantial structures for them- 
selves. There is still to be found at Naaman’s 
Creek, in Delaware, a Swedish blockhouse which 
is supposed to have been built in 1654, which is 
not of timber construction. 

> 


At what is now Gloucester, N. J., the Dutch 
West India Company erected a trading post in 
1623. The post was evidently nothing more than 
a fortification within which were erected rude 
buildings, the nature of which we now have no 
satisfactory evidence, but evidently they were con- 
structed of logs. 

This settlement is said to have consisted of a 
part of the Walloons who came over to the New 


73 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


Netherlands in the party of thirty families, al- 
ready mentioned. 

It was not until 1631 that the west side of the 
Delaware was settled by the Dutch. In that year 
several of the patroons took land on both sides of 
the stream, and attempted to found the settle- 
ment of Swaaendael, which has been assigned to a 
site near the present city of Lewes, Delaware. 
From all appearances, this was the first ambitious 
attempt at colonization on the South or Delaware 
River, but quarrels with the Indians resulted in 
that settlement as well as Fort Nassau being de- 
stroyed by the savages, and thus ending for a 
period any activity in the Delaware Valley. 

These facts will account for the absence of 
anything like Dutch architecture or construction 
of the period in this section of the country. 

A more determined effort to colonize the shores 
of the Delaware River was made by the Swedes, 
the first shipload of whose colonists arrived in 
1638, having been sent out by the South Company 
of Sweden, which had been organized in 1624 for 
the purpose of trading with the distant parts of 
the world, and especially with America. 

This expedition, which was led by two former 
associates of the Dutch West India Company, the 
patroon, Samuel Bloomaert, and Peter Minuit, a 
Walloon, who had been Governor of New Amster- 
dam. They established a trading post, and built 
a settlement, at what is now Wilmington, Dela- 
ware, and called the place Fort Christina, which 
appears to have been the first regularly laid out 
settlement along the Delaware. 


74 


EARLY PHILADELPHIA BALCONIED HOUSE 
Loxley Hall, from a photo, 1859 


15 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


Andreas Hudde, a commissioner sent out by 
Governor Kieft, of New Netherlands, to report 
upon the Swedish colonization along the shores of 
the South, or Delaware River, has given us a pic- 
ture of the conditions existing there in 1645. From 
his report it would appear that the Swedes had 
constructed a number of forts and storage maga- 
zines, a mill and a blockhouse. The latter was 
used to good effect in taking possession of a part 
of the territory which now lies in a part of Phila- 
delphia. 

From all appearances the Swedes introduced 
the Blockhouse style of rudimentary architecture 
in America. Virtually all of their early construc- 
tion was composed of logs, but these were replaced 
by masonry, and it may even be that Governor 
Printz’s “mansion” on Tinicum Island, which 
seems to have been the principal object to attract 
the eyes of travelers to the neighborhood, was 
built of timber. While we have no data upon the 
subject which would permit of describing its di- 
mensions, some idea of its character might be 
obtained from the remarks upon another house 
which he built in front of the Dutch fort on the 
Schuylkill called Fort Beversrede. This building 
was begun in September, 1648, and Alex Boyer, 
complaining of it in a letter to Stuyvesant said 
it was about thirty or thirty-five feet long by 
twenty broad. There appears to be reason to be- 
lieve that this was what in these days would be 
called a “Spite House,” as it did no other duty 
than stand within range of the guns of the Dutch 
Fort, much to the commander’s chagrin. One 


16 


IN PENNSYLVANIA BEFORE 1700 


might be pardoned for suggesting that the Gover- 
nor’s House must have been of much greater size, 
since it was always alluded to as a “mansion,” 
and probably was larger than the house just men- 
tioned. 

Thomas Campanius Holm, in his description of 
New Sweden, refers to Tinicum in this way: ‘‘Gov- 
ernor Printz resided in this fort, and gave it the 
name of New Gottenburg. He also caused to be 
built there a mansion for. himself and his family, 
which was very handsome: there was likewise a 
fine orchard, a pleasure house, and other conven- 
iences. He called it Printz Hall. On this island 
the principal inhabitants had their dwellings and 
plantations.” 

In 1646 the Swedes erected a church at Fort 
Christina (Wilmington), and it is known that it 
was built of logs. Of Manayunk, or Schuylkill, 
Holm says: “‘This was a handsome little fort built 
of logs, filled up with sand and stones, and sur- 
rounded with palisades cut sharp at the top. It 
was at the distance of four German miles east of 
Christina. It was mounted with great guns, as 
well as the other forts. Those forts are all sit- 
uated on the water side.” 

Of Kinsessing, now in Philadelphia, on the west 
bank of the Schuylkill River, he wrote: ‘“Chines- 
sing was called the New Fort. It was not properly 
a fort, but substantial log houses, built of good, 
strong hard hickory, two stories high, which was 
sufficient to secure the people from Indians.” At 
a place Holm alludes at as Karakung, “‘otherwise 
the Water Mill Stream, very convenient for water 


T7 


piunajhisuurd Ut snot 189010 
€89T LIINd “Vd ‘GNV1dN ‘ASNOH AWSOd 


78 


IN PENNSYLVANIA BEFORE 1700 


mills: the Governor caused one to be erected there. 
It was a fine mill, which ground both fine and 
coarse flour, and was going early and late; it was 
the first seen in that country. There was no fort 
near it, but only a strong dwelling house, built of 
hickory, and inhabitated by freemen.” 

Of a place called Finland, Holm says, “This 
place was inhabited by Finns, who had strong 
houses, but no fort. It lies at the distance of two 
German miles, east of Christina, by water, and 
by land, it is distant two long Swedish miles.” 

In 1656 Jacobus Crabbe petitioned the Director 
General of New Netherland regarding a planta- 
tion, identified with New Amstel, where “brick 
and stone are made and baked.” Which would 
indicate that brick was made in the early days 
along the Delaware, even before the English had 
arrived there to settle. Just what is meant by 
the term “made” can only be conjectured as to 
stone. It probably meant that stone was quarried 
and cut. When Crabbe began operations, also is 
a subject upon which there is no available infor- 
mation. 

Professor Kalm, the Swedish traveler, who vis- 
ited Philadelphia in 1748, has given us the only 
contemporary account of the character of the 
Swedish log houses, having on that occasion seen 
the last of the cabins, which then were in sad state 
of decay. 

This had been the home of Sven Saener, whose 
name has been corrupted into Swanson, and Kalm 
wrote of it: “The wretched old wooden building 
(on a hill a little north of the Swedes Church) 


79 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


belonging to one of the sons of Sven, is still pre- 
served as a memorial of the once poor state of 
that place. Its antiquity gives it a superiority 
over all the other buildings in the town, although 
in itself the worst of all. But with these advan- 
tages it is ready to fall down, and in a few years 
to come it will be as difficult to find the place 
where it stood, as it was unlikely, when built, that 
it should in a short time become the place of one 
of the greatest towns in America.” 

Watson, the Philadelphia annalist, says that the 
original log houses of the Svens were standing 
until the British occupied Philadelphia during the 
Revolution (1777-78) ,when they were taken down 
and converted into fuel. 

When Pastorius, the founder of Germantown, 
arrived in 1683, he said that Philadelphia consist- 
ed of three or four little cottages, such as Edward 
Drinker’s, Sven Saener’s, and that all of the resi- 
due being only woods, underwoods, timber and 
trees among which he several times lost himself 
in traveling from his cave by the waterside, to 
the hut of a Dutch baker, named Bom, who made 
their bread. , 

Referring to this cave, the dwelling of Pastor- 
lus, it is interesting to note that under date of 
17th, 9th month, 1685, the Provincial Executive 
Council ordered that all families living in caves 
should appear before the council. It seems that no 
one obeyed the order, so another order went forth 
that the Governor’s orders relating to caves, would 
be put into execution in one month’s time.. This 
was to the effect that all such dwellings should 


80 


IN PENNSYLVANIA BEFORE 1700 


be pulled down or demolished, because it was in- 
tended to open Front Street where these primi- 
tive houses were located. 

According to Watson, these caves were gener- 
ally formed by digging into the ground near the 
verge of the river bank, to a depth of about three 
feet, thus making the chamber partly under- 
ground, the remaining part was formed of sods of 
earth, or earth and brush combined. The roofs 
were formed of layers of limbs, or split pieces of 
trees, overlaid with sod or bark, river-rushes, etc. 
The chimneys were of stones, river pebbles, mor- 
tared together with clay and grass, or river-reeds. 

While some of the earliest inhabitants lived in 
caves such as those described until their dwellings 
were erected, this state of things was only of a 
temporary nature. Some of the best people who 
came over to settle in Philadelphia took an active 
hand in the construction of their future homes. 
Thus we learn from Watson, that Deborah Morris, 
one of the early dwellers in Philadelphia, related 
how “her good aunt Hard willingly volunteered 
to help her husband at one end of the saw, and to 
fetch all such water to make mortar, as was then 
needful to build their chimney.” The wife of an- 
other settler, Carter by name, whose dwelling was 
at the southeast corner of Fourth and Chestnut 
Streets, carried mortar for her husband while 
he helped to build their house. 

According to William Penn’s “Further Account 
of Pennsylvania, published in 1685, there were at 
that time ‘‘most sorts of useful tradesmen,” in 
Philadelphia, “‘as carpenters, joiners, bricklayers, 


81 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


masons, plasterers, plumbers, smiths, eee es 
among the building trades. 
> 

First among all of the cities in the Colonies, 
Philadelphia was quickly placed on a brick house 
basis, and the cave dwellers were not encouraged, 
as has been shown. The city had been laid out 
with precision, and had been arranged for certain 
kinds of construction. While wooden buildings 
were not prohibited, it appears that they were 
comparatively few in number, although Budd’s 
Row, which was erected in Front Street near Dock 
just before Penn’s arrival, were of frame. 

There appeared to be a perfect mania for brick 
building, because the lesson of the Great Fire of 
London was still fresh in the minds of the colon- 
ists. Another thing that made for a superior kind 
of construction, and consequently of architecture, 
was the fact that the settlers who came over in 
shiploads, were not adventurers in the usual sense 
of the word, but usually persons in comfortable, 
or even good circumstances, who believed in the 
ability of Penn to establish a Colony that would 
be progressive and tolerant of the religious beliefs 
of all who settled in his province, and an under- 
lying belief that purchases of land in Pennsyl- 
vania would quickly increase in value, which they 
really did. 

Those who came to Pennsylvania, especially 
those who settled in Philadelphia, intended to be- 
come fixtures, and as they had no doubts for the 
future, they built of material which would defy 
generations of use. 


82 


pruvajisuuag us asnoy adfhj-H 1s4y ay}, SOM SY 
CS8l JO HUYNLOId V NOU ‘VIHA TACVIIHd 


6é 


‘ 


ASNOH AOOU ALVIS, 


83 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


That is why we find an early Philadelphia type 
of architecture as applied to dwellings, which dif- 
fers from anything else of the same period, any- 
where else in the United States. Robert Turner, 
an Irish Quaker, one of the first purchasers who 
settled in Philadelphia and immediately gave his 
attention to building, used no other kind of con- 
struction than brick. 

In his letter to William Penn, dated the 3d of 
the 6th month (August), 1685), he states that 
there are about “600 houses in three years time,” 
meaning since Penn’s arrival in 1682. “And, 
since I built my brick house, the foundation of 
which was laid at thy going,” he adds, “which I 
did design after a good manner to encourage oth- 
ers, and that from building with wood, it being 
the first, many take example, and some that built 
wooden houses are sorry for it: Brick building is 
said to be as cheap: Bricks are exceeding good, 
and better than when I built: More makers fallen 
in, and bricks cheaper. They were before at 16s. 
English per 1000, and now many brave brick 
houses are going up, with good cellars.” 

Turner also notes that good limestone was to 
be found conveniently, and he also is authority 
for the statement that most of the early houses 
in Philadelphia were built with balconies. Where 
balconies were not erected it was usual to find a 
pent-house, which in turn became ancestor of the 
porch, which was a feature of Philadelphia houses 
at a little later date. 

One of the last of the buildings with a balcony, 
of the early period, but not so early as the time 


84. 


IN PENNSYLVANIA BEFORE 1700 


referred to, was the Loxley House on South Second 
Street, corner of what was Little Rock Street, and 
remembered as the home of Lydia Darragh. This 
building was removed about 1860. 

Watson quotes a contemporary letter writer de- 
scribing the reception to Governor Thomas Penn, 
in 1782: “When he reached here in the afternoon,” 
runs the quotation, “the windows and balconies 
were filled with ladies, and the streets with the 
mob, to see him pass.”” The Loxley house, or Lox- 
ley Hall, as it always was aliuded to by Philadel- 
phians in former times, was erected by Captain 
Benjamin Loxley, a master carpenter and builder 
in the middle eighteenth century. This building 
probably was erected in 1759. It was of frame, 
but its balcony was its striking feature. It is pic- 
tured here because it was photographed not long 
before the building was removed, and thus we have 
the only authentic picture of an ancient balconied 
Philadelphia house. It is well to warn against 
accepting the Loxley house as exhibiting the char- 
acteristic balcony of the eighteenth century, the 
writer’s own view is that the general run of bal- 
conies were more or less the roofing portions of 
the early porches. Balconies continued to be erect- 
ed on dwellings built even to the middle nineteenth 
century in the older sections of Philadelphia, but 
these were work of enthusiastic cast iron mould- 
ers. 

There are still in existence several examples of 
buildings erected in Pennsylvania before the year 
1700. One of these, however, the Penn Mansion, 
cannot be justly regarded as anything more than it 


85 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


is. It contains the same frames, brick, and certain 
other parts of the original which stood in Letitia 
Street, Philadelphia, until forty years ago. These 
were removed to Fairmount Park, where the parts 
were reassembled. While virtually we have the 
same house that Penn once lived in, we have it 
with adifference that it has been entirely rebuilt. 

At Upland, just outside of Chester, there will be 
found the Caleb Pusey House. This was built the 
same year as the Penn House—1683. It has not 
been much changed from its pristine appearance. 
The first story is of field stone, roughiy piastered, 
and above this to the gambrel, or curb roof, its 
gables are brick. The architecture is of the simp- 
lest character, and excepting for the curb roof is 
a strong reminder of the style of houses the Eng- 
lish cottagers lived in in the days of Elizabeth. 

Gloria Dei, also known as Old Swedes’ Church, 
is another existing example of this seventeenth 
century building. This edifice was erected between 
1698 and 1700, although some of its features, not- 
ably the porches, date more recently. 

In Germantown, a part of Philadelphia which 
has preserved many examples of American Colo- 
nial Architecture, is still standing a house which 
in part, dates from 1690. This is the picturesque 
property, known as “Wyck.” The house really is 
-a combination of what formerly were two dwell- 
ings, and even the later building is ancient, dat- 
ing probably from about the year 1700. About 
the middle of the eighteenth century the house 
was joined with a central hall, and the place given 
the appearance of a mansion. About a century 


86 


00LT-069T GHLOGUH 


Vd 


‘ 


NMOLNVWUAD 


‘ 


MOAM 


87 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


ago further alterations were made to the building, 
but its original architecture has not been seriously 
obliterated. 

It is not generally known or appreciated that in 
the year 1700 there were more brick buildings in 
Philadelphia than in all the remainder of the 
Colonies together. In that year there were 700 — 
dwelling houses in Philadelphia, and at least two- 
thirds of the number were constructed of brick. 

All of the buildings were designed by carpen- 
ters or bricklayers, but usually by the former, wno 
were the architects and builders of the period. 
At this time they were not giving any serious con- 
sideration to the refinements of architecture, but 
were building apparently for eternity. The dwell- 
ings they erected did not show any influence of 
anything of the kind to be found in Europe of that 
day. 

First, the builders had an original problem. 
They had a condition that had not appeared in 
Europe. The city of Philadelphia had been planned 
by its proprietor. Its streets laid out with pre- 
cision, and run straight. The city “squares” as 
they still call the blocks in Philadelphia, were 
divided up into lots for purchasers, and the pur- 
chaser of a certain footage, received a large plot 
in the city’s Liberties, or lands just outside the 
city proper. Here was a new city to be built on 
straight lines, and the houses had to be erected 
in an economical manner, for the country was 
young, and its future was all before it. 

The first real mansion to be erected was Sam- 
uel Carpenter’s “Slate Roof House,” which stood 


88 


IN PENNSYLVANIA BEFORE 1700 


on Second Street east side, north of Walnut Street. 
This building was the first erected in Philadelphia, 
or in Pennsylvania, which could in any manner be 
said to have been influenced by similar structures 
in England, or from an English form. 

It was much the largest house that had been 
built in Pennsylvania up to the time of its erection, 
which is roughly placed at 1698. Its front, having 
two bastions, was a reduced copy of the H-type 
house which began to flourish in England towards 
the end of the seventeenth century. The rear of 
the house, however, was perfectly straight across 
the entire width of the building, thus departing 
from the true H-type. That the builder of the 
Slate Roof House had access to one of the edi- 
tions of Stephen Primatt’s “City and Country Pur- 
chaser,” which was issued in 1667 and again in 
1682, seems certain because the type was new 
then in England and unknown in the Colonies. 

If this surmise is a correct one, then we may 
assert that this is the first instance in the Colonies 
where use has been made of an architectural book 
in the construction of a house. The house was 
erected by James Porteus, for one of the richest 
merchants in Philadelphia at the time. It is en- 
tirely within probabilities to say that Carpenter 
had his builder send to England for a book to 
guide him in erecting a suitable mansion house for 
him. He wanted something better than had yet 
been built in Philadelphia, and he got it. Upon 
this building was used the first slates, or tile stones 
used in Pennsylvania. Penn’s house at Pennsbury 
erected some time later, also had a slate roof, and 


89 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 
for a century these appear to have been the only 


examples of slate roof in the province, or possiby 
in any other part of the Colonies. 


90 


CHAPTER VI 
PENNSYLVANIA 1700 TO 1750 


much in localities and in times that almost 

any attempt at close division of the subject 
must appear to be more or less arbitrary. Thus 
with this chapter the period intended to be cov- 
ered does not in itself represent anything of sig- 
nificance that could not be applied to almost any 
decade in the same time. But generally speaking, 
the second half of the eighteenth century does 
exhibit marked changes in architecture in the Col- 
onies from the first half of the same cycle. 

There is greater improvement noted in the first 
quarter of the eighteenth century in the style of 
building construction in Pennsylvania over the 
preceding two decades than subsequently oc- 
curred. It will be easily imagined that this must 
have been the case, because by that time the 
pioneer work had been completed and the inhabi- 
tants not only had more time to give to their 
buildings, but also had more money to use for the 


91 


Va Colonial Architecture differed so 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


purpose. They also found a better supply of, me- 
chanics to do the work. 

We are also now approaching the period when 
carpenters, who were the only architects then to 
be found in the Colonies, realized that their pa- 
trons demanded something better than the primi- 
tive, and consequently they were by these cir- 
cumstances forced to send to England for newer 
books, the majority of them compiled by men 
who were architects as well as practical builders. 

In the older sections of Philadelphia there still 
may be seen some of the types of dwellings erect- 
ed about 1700-1715. Naturally they have suf- 
fered somewhat by repairs made in the course of 
two centuries, but in the main the style of archi- 
tecture is well defined. 

As soon as the first efforts of the settlers to 
erect suitable habitations had been advanced and 
the population began to prosper, better types of 
dwellings and, it should be understood that this 
was the only kind of building then being construct- 
ed in Pennsylvania, because aside from the square- 
looking Quaker meeting house, jails, and a town 
hall for Philadelphia erected about 1709, there 
was nothing else done in the building line. 

We find that the best efforts of the carpenters 
and builders were directed to the erection of 
dwellings, and they were so intent upon the style 
they had consciously or unconsciously adopted 
that when they came to erect a town hall, it was 
little more than an enlarged two-storied dwelling 
with a steeple, and the stairways outside. Its 
dimensions were perforce small because it was 


92 


EARLY PENT-HOUSE EXAMPLES, PHILADELPHIA 
Built circa 1700 


93 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


placed in the middle of the city’s principal thor- 
oughfare—Market Street, at Second. 

It was about this time that the pent-house 
adornment was added to buildings generally in 
Philadelphia, and in some of the structures erect- 
ed not far from the capital of the Province. 

While it would not be correct to assert that the 
pent-house or pent eve attachment to buildings 
was unknown outside of the province of Penn- 
sylvania, it may be stated that it is a characteris- 
tic of early Colonial architecture in that province. 

On the other hand, it might be thought that the 
many-gabled house was only to be found in the 
buildings of early New England, but this feature 
was to be found in Pennsylvania, as well, al- 
though not identified with that part of the coun- 
try, but especially was characteristic of New Eng- 
land. 

An example of this style of house was stand- 
ing in Philadelphia until forty years ago. In the 
structure long known to Philadelphians as the 
London Coffee House, which stood at Front and 
Market Streets in that city, was seen a square- 
planned building with three gable ends, and pos- 
sibly when originally erected with a fourth. In 
addition to this feature which was more or less 
startling in Philadelphia architecture of the pe- 
riod, the building had a squared gambrel roof, 
each of the dormers beng covered with a section. 
The style seems to have been peculiar to this 
building, and while we do not know the builder 
of it, there is a strong suspicion that it was the 
work of James Porteus, the builder of the Slate 


94 


PHILADELPHIA 1700 TO 1750 


Roof House and of several other early mansions 
in Pennsylvania. 

From such scattered information as can be col- 
lected about Porteus, who was by all evidences the 
best builder in the Colonies in his time, it appears 
that he was a native of Dumfries, Scotland, and 
that he worked in London before coming to Phila- 
delphia. He died in the early part of the year, 
1737, and was one of the original associators of 
the Carpenters’ Company in 1724. The London 
Coffee House, which was erected in 1702, was re- 
moved in 1883. 

Sir William Keith, who had been Surveyor of 
Customs in the Carolinas, came to Pennsylvania 
in 1717 and, being an astute politician, was well 
received, finally becoming governor of the Prov- 
ince. Keith, who always did everything hand- 
somely, purchased a large tract of land in what 
is now a part of Montgomery County, in Pennsy]- 
vania—1200 acres, in fact, and there designed to 
grow grain, and possibly erect a distillery. How- 
ever, he built a road to his land, and on his prop- 
erty erected a house in 1721, and this building, 
owing to certain peculiarities is worthy of study, 
because it is still in good condition. 

Its exterior architecture is exceedingly plain; 
it is three stories in height, with dormers jut- 
ting from a gambrel roof. The walls are of a 
local stone, and the design is of the simplest char- 
acter. But while there is a record that a certain 
James Kirk, a stone mason, was the builder, it 
may be set down as a certainty that Kirk did 
little more than build the walls, for the interior 


95 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


contains the best example of eighteenth century 
mural wood panelling to be found in the country; 
and this statement is made with a knowledge of 
at least one other Philadelphia mansion of the 
period being described. 

After viewing the interior wall panelling of 
the Graeme House one cannot put aside the im- 
pression that it owes much of its design to the 
book of the Scotch architect, James Gibbs, whose 
“Designs” was published in 1728. The lateness of 
the date of Gibb’s book might be argument against 
his influence, but it is possible either that this 
mural decoration was executed later than the time 
usually assigned for the erection of the house, 
or that Gibbs really made the designs and sent 
them to Pennsylvania. 

There are marked differences in the details of 
the woodwork in the Graeme mansion and from 
the designs of Gibbs, but these are more or less 
simplifications, and the kind that characterized 
the American Colonial architecture. 

It should always be borne in mind that the ar- 
tificers and builders in America in Colonial days 
developed a style of their own. It was not orig- 
inal; but then, neither is any other style. Influ- 
ences of something gone before is inseparable 
from all styles, but the manner in which the new 
turn or new thought is given to what is older is 
what makes originality. It is never good art 
to startle with something that contains in it noth- 
ing familiar. As with all other arts, architecture 
that is only different cannot be said to be original. 


96 


LTINa 


VIHd THCVWIIHd YVAN 


‘ 


MUVd GANAVYD 


97 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


To do something different is the simplest thing 
in the world, but to be original is given to the few 
to accomplish. 
> 

In the present day when “Colonial Type” houses 
are being erected by the hundred in various real 
estate operations there is good reason for one to 
pause before he absorbs the erroneous idea pro- 
jected for his benefit. 


It should be borne in mind that there never was 
a Colonial “type,” although the term is used loose- 
ly enough, even by those to whom we look for 
more exactness in statement. Colonial houses, or 
those buildings erected in the days that preceded 
the adoption of the American system of govern- 
ment, naturally were not of a type, excepting so 
far as they might be said to express something 
different from what was to be found in the mother 
country during the same period. There were, in- 
deed, many essentially American types of struc- 
tures in Colonial days, but when a person isolates 
one of them and makes it the type he has failed to 
fully grasp the extent of his folly. 

As an instance of this popular misconception 
of the subject the writer recalls having seen it as- 
serted with authority that the true Colonial house 
had five windows to the floor across its facade. 
In refutation of this assertion, if it were needed, 
the reader is only referred to the illustrations ac- 
companying this chapter which shows two ex- 
tremely interesting examples of Colonial architec- 
ture, and neither of them has less than six win- 
dows to a floor across its front elevation. 


98 


PHILADELPHIA 1700 TO 1750 


Another designation which has achieved accept- 
ance by the majority of writers on the subject is 
the term Georgian. Although the writer con- 
fesses to having been one of the offenders, he is 
convinced that the term, as applied to American 
architecture is weak and ineffective. There has 
been an ambitious attempt made to divide the ex- 
amples into Periods, but while these may be chron- 
ologically correct, they have to do more with time 
than with architectural design. 

The fact is that while these Period Georgian 
buildings may be so designated for convenience 
in some parts of the country, in other sections the 
term is absolutely impotent to adequately describe 
the houses of precisely contemporary date. 

Wyck, the interesting stucco-coated stone house 
in Germantown, Philadelphia, already mentioned, 
was erected while William and Mary reigned; 
the group of small houses shown in another illus- 
tration, was built when Anne was Queen, and yet 
something architecturally from both are to be 
found in other buildings in Pennsylvania erected 
when one or another of the Georges was on the 
British throne. It should not be forgotten that 
for more than a century there was a King George 
in Great Britain. Of course, none of the Four 
Georges influenced architecture, and neither is 
the architecture of 1800, when George III, still 
was king, sufficiently described by calling it Geor- 
gian. 

We shall have to look elsewhere to find labels 
to fit our American architecture during the sev- 
enteenth and eighteenth centuries, and probably, 


99 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


in the end, we shall find the names for it among 
the workers in the craft in England and America 
during these periods. 

Even the tentative divisions which the writer 
has already made into three periods—that Before 
Books were used; that of the part use of books 
by American builders; and that which revealed a 
neo-classic phase influenced evidently by architec- 
tural books, is not exactly satisfying, for many 
reasons already outlined. 

For instance, it has been shown that Pennsyl- 
vania builders were early guided by plans de- 
rived from printed works on architecture. In- 
deed, when the so-called Slate Roof House was 
erected, probably no other contemporary struc- 
ture in the Colonies had been influenced to a like 
extent from a similar source. In New England, 
which bases much of its glory upon its literary 
achievements, there is no evidence that builders’ 
books were at all well known, or used, until the 
end of the French-Indian War. In Pennsylvania, 
New York and Maryland, and, to an extent, Vir- 
ginia, architectural books evidently were fairly 
common much earlier. 

Yet, New England builders, in their way, estab- 
lished a type of Colonial house, and a style of 
meeting house, or church edifice, as characteristic 
as anything produced elsewhere during the same 
period, but the limitations to certain kinds of 
building materials in that section of the country, 
caused the builders to select a simpler form, and 
one that was more nearly English in origin than 
American. | 


100 


101 


BUILT 1727 


STENTON, PHILADELPHIA. 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


> 

Pennsylvania, the first of the Colonies to be 
started in a business-like manner, owing to the 
remarkable skill for Government, and finance, 
possessed by its Proprietary, William Penn, rap- 
idly rose to a place of importance in commerce 
and industry. While other Colonies received for 
settlement persons of slender means, or no means 
at all, excepting in a few instances, where Eng- 
lishmen of considerable wealth settled as planters 
and lived in comfort and idleness, those who came 
to Pennsylvania at the start were usually men of 
some means and progressive in spirit. But more 
than that, they were industrious themselves and 
worked as well as paid laborers. They were 
thrifty, wise in investment, and sufficiently daring 
in enterprise to establish useful industries. 

By the middle of the eighteenth century, the 
capital of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, was the 
metropolis of America, although still a small coun- 
try town. It was the center of commerce, and 
being about midway between Virginia and Massa- 
chusetts, held a commanding position. There was 
to be found a broader spirit than prevailed in New 
England, and yet a more conservative tone than 
was to be found in the South. Consequently it is 
no drain upon the imagination to picture how such 
a situation had its influence in building. 

Almost immediately after arriving in the coun- 
try the settlers of Pennsylvania began to erect 
homes that were intended to be permanent in con- 
struction. Hence in the cities and towns, brick 
was usually chosen for the building material, 


102 


PHILADELPHIA 1700 TO 1750 


while in the country houses and even barns were 
constructed of local stone. The period of cave- 
dwelling was short, indeed, and was nothing more 
than a temporary expedient for the class of per- 
sons who went to the Province to settle, had been 
used to good dwellings in Europe, and would not 
be satisfied with any kind of stop-gap if it were 
intended to be permanent. 


Having then a thrifty, wealthy, intelligent class 
of settlers, the first generation had scarcely passed 
away before there was a demand for better build- 
ings. There were at hand a fair supply of in- 
telligent and skilled mechanics, and as prosperity 
smiled upon the enterprising Pennsylvanians, 
they demanded mansions more suited to their new 
dignity. 


A few of these ancient structures fortunately 
remain for us to study them, and it has been said 
with some degree of truth that in Pennsylvania, 
especially in Philadelphia, are to be found today 
more interesting examples of early Colonial arch- 
itecture than anywhere else in the country. The 
Civil War, unfortunately, caused the destruc- 
tion of many interesting examples of Colonial 
buildings in the South, although, even there 
some structures that may be said to be historic, 
were saved. However, the statement stands as 
written, for Philadelphia is not compared to the 
whole country, but to any other city in it. 


There is no more interesting example of the 
American Colonial structure of the first half of 
the eighteenth century than Stenton, the mansion 


1038 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


of James Logan, Secretary and Governor of Penn- 
sylvania. Stenton mansion was erected in 1727, 
and displays the hand of the accomplished builder 
of the period. It has been suggested that the 
house was built by Porteus, and while the writer 
has seen no documentary evidence for this state- 
ment, he feels it is a reasonable one. Certainly 
no other builder then in Pennsylvania seems to 
have been capable of such a well-designed country 
house. 

Excepting only Westover, Virginia, Stenton 
was the finest mansion in the Colonies in 1727. 
It stands today a most interesting exhibit of the 
best design during the first half of the eighteenth 
century in the American Colonies. It is, in a 
sense, a more important example of this early 
period of the Colonial house than even Westover, 
because Stenton, unlike the latter, never has been 
restored. It has been repaired, of course, but it 
never suffered from devastating fire, or other de- 
structive agency, and therefore is an original 
specimen. 

It will be noted that despite the fact that Sten- 
ton is one of the best houses of the early period 
when books were beginning to be used by the 
American designers of houses, it has six windows 
in a row on its facade, which ought to be sufficient 
refutation of the fallacy that a true Colonial de- 
sign ought to have five. As has been pointed out, 
the number of windows has nothing at all to do 
with the identification of the period of a Colonial 
house. 

In another chapter when the whole subject of 


104 


LONDON COFFEE HOUSE, PHILADELPHIA 
Built 1702—Removed 1883 


105 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


fenestration in the Colonial house will -be dis- 
cussed, it will be shown that the owner’s desires 
had a good deal to do with the number of win- 
dows to be found in his house. It may be recalled 
that the house erected by John Bartram in 1730- 
31, was more or less a copy of the Slate Roof 
House, which had only single windows on each 
floor in its bastions. 


The Bartram House is one of the mysteries of 
Colonial architecture which never has been fully 
and satisfactorily solved. Probably this is due 
to the fact that it probably never has been suffi- 
ciently studied. The house, which tradition says 
was erected by Bartram with his own hands, is 
totally unlike anything of the kind erected in 
the Colonies. | 


Like the Slate Roof House, it is a development 
of the H-type of design, but not a true copy of it, 
because the postern side is flat, and the facade is 
ornamented by three columns. The designs 
around the windows in the facade are unlike any- 
thing found in an American house of the period. 


Although the house is said to date from 1730 
the tablet set in the front wall over the right hand 
window contains an inscription that might be 
interpreted to mean that the house was finally 
finished in 1770. It is certain that if the botanist 
built his house with his own hands he could not 
have completed so large a mansion as it is within 
a year’s time. The columns in front also appear 
to be an after thought, and the ornaments around 
the windows in the facade give the impression 


106 


PHILADELPHIA 1700 TO 1750 


of a distinctly later period than that assigned for 
the date of the erection of the house. 

There are indications that the house as we have 
it today differs in appearance from what it did 
originally. The three columns in front hold up 
the roof in the middle, but overhanging the porch 
is a section of wood, which is out of keeping with 
the design of this stone house, and evidently is of 
much later date than the house. There are evi- 
dences that originally there was nothing between 
the stone porch floor and the roof in the middle 
of the facade, which would be an agreeable de- 
sign, and the forerunner of a style that after- 
wards became very popular, first in the South 
and later in the Northern Colonies. 

Virtually none of the woodwork around the ex- 
terior of Bartram’s House is original, and the 
dormer windows show unmistakable signs of hav- 
ing been comparatively recent, although no doubt 
they were replacements of dormer windows in 
the same locations. The outjutting structures, 
which add nothing to the design, are undoubtedly 
of much later origin than the house. 

The ancient statement about the active part 
Bartram took in the building of his home, should 
be taken with a little less literalness. It is quite 
likely that he superintended the work, and it is 
entirely possible that he performed some of the 
actual practical operations with his own hands, 
but the later embellishments of the house indicate 
a practiced stone cutter and carver was employed. 
The carved stone window facings have been bolt- 
ed into the walls, which is another indication 


107 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


that they were carved and set in place after the 
house had been erected many years. The impres- 
sion these and other peculiarities of the house 
made upon the writer was that the carved date of 
1770 really represents the final adornment of 
the building, although the other date on the wall, 
1731, probably is that of the completion of the 
original house. 


108 


CHAPTER VII 
IN THE FRENCH COLONIES 


EK HAVE become so accustomed to consid- 
WV ering the English forms of architecture 
as the only ones to be found in American 
Colonial types that we have neglected the French 
colonies altogether. In this, and the following 
chapter it is intended to devote some attention to 
a subject fully as interesting as any of the English 
Colonies offer, and, it may be mentioned in passing 
in types that survive in Canada to the present day. 
These French types do not survive merely as a 
species of affected interest for what is passed and 
gone, but because the people in the French parts 
of Canada merely have continued practices that 
were either formed or translated from the mother 
country, three centuries ago. 

There is another reason for the persistence of 
these types, especially so far as Quebec Province 
is concerned, and that is the severe climate of 
these northern lands. Much of the kind of archi- 
tecture with which we, in the Middle States, are 
familiar could not be naturalized in the North 
where winters bring not only temperatures as low 


109 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


as 26 below zero, but heavy snows, and a. long 
period of wintry weather. It is no uncommon 
sight to see winter’s snows lingering in certain 
parts of Quebec in the middle of May. These 
facts must first of all be understood before we 
consider the manner in which the French built, 
and it may be said, still build their houses. 

It might be said in passing that the climate in 
these parts has been responsible for another thing 
that should be a lesson to Americans farther south. 
It is the exception to find a building in French 
Canada out of repair. One will be told that the 
people are poor, but such well kept buildings are 
not to be found where wealth is more abundant. 

> 

Champlain, the founder of Quebec, was not a 
talented artist, and when he strove to give us pic- 
tures of the structures he erected on the banks of 
the St. Lawrence he may be said to have only 
achieved a qualified success. However, from his 
statements we are able to reconstruct for a men- 
tal vision, the kind of structures the first settlers | 
and adventurers in New France built for their 
occupation. 

Cartier preceded Champlain to the banks of the 
St. Lawrence by nearly three-quarters of a cen- 
tury. And on one of his excursions the latter dis- 
covered one of the settlements of his predecessor, 
then in ruins about three miles up the St. Charles 
River, a small stream which empties into the St. 
Lawrence at Quebec and within a quarter of a 
mile from the site of Champlain’s fort. 

From his report of these we learn that Cartier 
had erected rough wooden cabins which had stone 

110 


MONTREAL—TOWER OF FORT DE LA MONTAGNE 


111 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


chimneys and stone foundation walls as well, and 
the courageous adventurer and his party had spent 
one of the stern Canadian winters in his place in 
1535. Nothing tangible remains of this settle- 
ment, but it may easily be imagined to have been 
nothing more than a temporary headquarters for 
the discoverer of the St. Lawrence River. 

There is a difference between the objects of Car- 
tier and Champlain. The former did not come out 
prepared to erect settlements and colonize the new 
land. His was a voyage more of discovery, and 
naturally, was only intended to look over the coun- 
try, and see its possibilities, and, if possible to 
carry back as much of the riches of the land as he 
could gather. 

On the other hand, Champlain, coming three- 
quarters of a century later, while also a pioneer, 
had the advantage of traveling over ground al- 
ready trod by one of his own countrymen. Indeed, 
the St. Lawrence had been visited on several oc- — 
casions by a French adventurer and mariner, who 
had brought back such rich cargoes of furs that 
when he suggested to one who was influential at 
the Court of France that a concession would prove 
valuable, his suggestion was kindly listened to. 
Finally a company was formed to. work out a con- 
cession received from the French king, but the 
head of this company, Aymar de Chastes, a war- 
rior and patriot, had a larger conception of what 
was to be done. In his mind France should have 
a footing in the New World, to advance the in- 
terests of King and Church, and thus it may be 
said that the first honest attempt to colonize North 


112 


IN THE FRENCH COLONIES 


America was made by France. Other and even 
some later attempts were obviously not coloniza- 
tion schemes, but bold efforts to mine the riches 
of the new country, without any other interest 
either for the aborigines or of permanently set- 
tling the land. 

It is the history of the early attempts at settle- 
ment of North America that the real pioneer work 
was done by adventurers. They were the Argo- 
nauts of the sixteenth and early seventeenth cen- 
turies. Just as the gold diggers who infested the 
western coast of the United States in 749 had no 
more interest than of becoming wealthy as rapidly 
as possible and returning home, where amid more 
civilized surroundings they would enjoy the gold 
they had won from the earth, so, too, did these 
earlier discoverers. 

It was a vastly different sort of people one 
finds arriving in New England in the winter of 
1620, or in Pennsylvania in 1682. Both of these 
latter expeditions were composed of men and their 
families who had emigrated from the home coun- 
try to begin a new and permanent existence m 
the new land. These people as soon as they could 
do so built for posterity, while the early adven- 
turers only built for their temporary needs. In 
the one we soon find sympathetic attempts at arch- 
itecture that is more or less pleasing, while in the 
other we find the coarsest and most primitive con- 
struction. 

The colonization of Canada followed along the 
same lines. The first Frenchmen to arrive there 
were adventurers, and it is asserted that there 


113 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


were many convicted felons among them, who had 
been released from French prisons that they might 
be sent out to settle the new country. 

> 

When Champlain sailed for America in April, 
1608, the French still had expectations that the 
St. Lawrence might lead to a passage to Cathay. 
It was this ship of Samuel de Champlain that 
carried the first permanent colony to New France, 
and it was the intention of the leader of the ex- 
pedition to found a headquarters or central sta- 
tion on the great river from which excursions of 
discovery could be sent out. 

Champlain had been in Canada the previous 
year, and consequently was not unfamiliar with 
general conditions. He provided so far as he 
was able to do so, against the unfavorable ones. 
Coming with a determination to stay, he brought 
with him carpenters and other mechanics to erect 
the buildings that would be required by the settle- 
ment. His, therefore, was the first serious at- 
tempt at colonization in Canada by the French, 
or, indeed, by any other nation. From their dis- 
covery and partial exploration of the St. Law- 
rence River, the French made a claim to what 
eventually was found to be half of the North 
American continent, although its extent was un- 
known to these early adventurers. 

Champlain’s expedition, which founded the city 
of Quebec, disembarked from their ship on July 3, 3 
1608, and his men immediately set about building 
“L’abitation,” as Champlain entitled the fort and 
settlement group which he had erected. The site 


114 


QUEBEC—HOUSE IN WHICH MONTCALM DIED 


115 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


was in what is now called the Lower Town in 
Quebec, although still considerably elevated from 
the surface of the St. Lawrence. 

The site was overgrown with vines and trees, 
the latter principally walnut, and once cleared the 
cellar was dug. A foundation of logs, cut from 
the surrounding forest was built upon with 
squared timbers, and roughly sawed planks. The 
first structure erected is said to have been a 
storehouse, in which were stored the provisions 
brought along from France. While the work of 
erecting the settlement was advancing, the ex- 
pedition lived on board ship, thus foregoing the 
necessity of dwelling in Indian tepees or wig- 
wams. 

While the founder of Quebec has left us a de- 
tailed sketch of his settlement, his ideas of per- 
spective seem to have been derived from a study 
of Japanese prints of a time gone by, although, 
of course, Champlain probably had no knowledge 
of Japan at all. In his enthusiastic efforts to 
show everything, he drew a confused mass of 
dwellings, platforms, drawbridge, moats, and gal- 
lery, that even taken together with his explana- 
tory notes is difficult to understand. | 

The buildings evidently were severely plain, and 
of the simplest design, having the most primitive 
type of pitch roof, and one double window to a 
side, on each of the two stories. The buildings 
were grouped within a palisaded fortification, 
which had the ancient bastions, jutting out in 
points in various directions. A dovecote, and a 
sundial placed on the roof of the armory, com- 


116 


IN THE FRENCH COLONIES 


pleted the group. While the dimensions of the 
“Habitation” are not given they evidently were 
modest, as the moat was only six feet wide. There 
were three dwelling houses for the party, and 
Champlain occupied the first floor of the building 
at the entrance. 

In order to make the wooden structures proof 
against the Arctic cold of the Canadian winter, 
the crevices between the boards were calked. 
While this term is not especially explained 1n the 
accounts of the settlement, it is inferred that it 
is to be taken literally, because Champlain and 
his party were virtually all of them sailors, and 
the calking therefore may be said to have been 
similar to the kind they were familiar with. In 
New England, and elsewhere in the Colonies, this 
kind of construction was performed by the use of 
clay and sand. Champlain’s men evidently used 
oakum and pitch, such as is used to calk decks 
and sides of the wooden vessels of his day. 

The work had been so persistently pushed 
through the short, warm summer days that when 
winter finally did appear, the settlement was com- 
fortable, and thus passed the first successful at- 
tempt at settlement in Canada. 

Wood construction never was in general use in 
the French Colony of Canada, and where today 
one finds a frame building in the province of 
Quebec, it usually is a modern structure. While 
further inland there were in the days of settle- 
ment vast woods, the soil generally was barren, 
owing to the presence of rocks in the eastern 
section of the country. But, on the other hand, 
it was the presence of these same rocks that en- 

117 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


abled the settlers to build strongly, for they had 
at hand all the material needed for stone con- 
struction. 

Through Quebec runs the Laurentian Moun- 
tains, the oldest in the world, being the outcrop- 
ping of one of the oldest geological systems. Lime- 
stone is found in abundance, consequently it was 
merely making use of the materials at their feet 
and accepting their good fortune, that the French 
chose to build of stone. In this case they were 
fortunate because of the intense cold of the long 
winters. These long, cold winters have had an 
unfortunate effect upon the present day inhabi- 
tants. So long accustomed to having their houses 
shut in with thick shutters, they forget, or neg- 
lect when the summer comes to open them. The 
half shutters which the traveler sees in the prov- 
ince today are intended mainly as storm shutters, 
but he is astonished to find them closely shut in 
the warm, beautiful days of summer in these lat- 
itudes. The principal effect of this inattention 
is to make the houses chilly in the hottest days 
of summer. One feels creepy in entering one in 
August, for the clammy air is disconcerting, and 
no sunlight is permitted to reach the interior, ex- 
cepting through the opened blinds. Here and 
there one finds the half shutters thrown open, 
but never are the whole storm shutters taken down 
for the season. 

From the oldest existing types of the Colonial 
structures to be found in Quebec Province today 
there is every reason to assign their architectural 
influence to what We are wont to denominate Nor- 
man, It is a simple style without flourish, whose 

118 


—] 
QUEBEC—OLD HOUSE WITH TWO ROWS OF DORMERS 


119 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


only ornamentation begins and ends with the 
roof, where rows of dormer windows give a 
quaintness to the structure. 

> 

There are differences to be noted between the 
town examples of domestic architecture and that 
of the country. Of course, we expect to find this 
in other parts of North America, especially in 
the United States, but in Quebec, where the primi- 
tive still lingers, this variety has a tendency to 
attract attention. Then, again, the country arch- 
itecture that one finds in the neighborhood of 
Quebec City is another version of what one finds 
in the environs of Montreal, which is more than 
one hunded and fifty miles up the St. Lawrence, 
and both are in marked contrast with what one 
finds in the Province of Ontario, where the archi- 
tecture is more British, where it is not downright 
American in influence. 

One must examine with a great deal of care — 
what one sees that appears to be ancient in Que- 
bec. The oldest-looking buildings are not always 
those that have been longest built, and some struc- 
tures which the guide books will tell you have 
been built for more than two centuries, look as 
if they might have been the product of the early 
part of the Nineteenth century. 

From these statements it may well be believed 
that what has been said of the great care taken 
to keep repaired the houses in this part of the 
world is justified. The use of stone, especially 
set deep in mortar, and the walls smoothed to of- 
fer little invitation to the devastating effects of 


120 


IN THE FRENCH COLONIES 


weather, is partly responsible for the good ap- 
pearance of many of these old buildings. 

In Boucherville, on the outskirts of Montreal, 
one finds here and there a farm house or barn 
with a thatched roof; indeed, one of the trim- 
looking ancient country houses in this district is 
named La Chaumiere, or the Thatched House. 
At the present time La Chaumiere has a modern 
roof of galvanized iron. These buildings, how- 
ever, are not so old as those found further down 
the St. Lawrence. One of the buildings near 
Boucherville has a small sign upon it calling at- 
tention to the fact that it was erected in 1760. 
It might be stated in passing that this house has 
a porch, which is an unusual appendage to build- 
ings in Eastern Canada. 

In place of either porch, or hood, or pent-eve, 
these houses, which usually are one and a half 
stories in height, have a long, high-pitched roof, 
which ends in a sweeping curve well over the 
walls of the building. This offers protection from 
the sun in summer, and from rains and snowslides 
from the roof in winter. 

One of the outstanding features of the old 
French architecture which found a home in Can- 
ada, was the dormer windows. While the walls of 
a house in front would only proclaim it to be one 
story, or two stories, the roof would offer as many 
as three attic stories, lighted by dormers, which 
grew less in size as they approached the top of 
the roof, and none of them is at all equal in size 
to the dormer windows with which we are familiar 
in the existing examples of Colonial architecture 
in the Middle States or New England. 

121 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


The whole question of fenestration was attacked 
in a far different manner by the French Colonials 
than it was by those in the British Colonies. The 
French had comparatively few windows, and none 
of them large for the size of the walls, and here 
one believes that, apart from following the types 
the settlers were familiar with at home, they de- 
liberately made the wall openings few and small 
in order to keep the buildings warm in the terribly 
cold winters they encountered in Canada. North- 
ern France is cold and cheerless in winter, but 
it does not know temperatures of twenty degrees 
below zero, although its latitude is farther north 
than that of Quebec. 

In the grounds of the College of Montreal, or 
the Petit Seminaire, as it is also called, in Mon- 
treal, are two round towers, all that remain of the 
old Fort de la Montagne, which was erected about 
the close of the seventeenth century. These tow- 
ers, which are of local stone, were used by the 
little garrison to defend itself against the attacks 
of Indians. The towers today have lost all of 
their warlike character, and are simply pictur- 
esque relics of early French Canada. The main 
point about them is that they show the Norman 
origin of the engineers who constructed the build- 
ings. 

On the other hand, the facade of the ancient 
Seminaire of St. Sulpice, in Montreal, which dates 
from 1685, while distinctly French, gives in the 
little bell tower over the clock, a suggestion of 
what we have come to regard as Spanish, of the 
Mission period in California. It will be seen, how- 
ever, that this detail is French, as the remainder 


122 


PLOT NI WWIINd ASNO 


H—oadand 


123 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


of the facade plainly shows by the manner in 
which the windows open, and the character of the 
stone work. 

In Quebec one will find on St. Louis Street, a 
quaint two and a half story building, the second 
floor of which opens on to the roof with two dor- 
mer windows, and above these is another, or attic 
story. This building is said to have been erected 
before 1674, and the present occupants of it ad- 
vertise it as the Maison de Montcalm, and give 
one to understand that in it the French general 
breathed his last at the Conquest of Canada. Our 
interest in the structure, fortunately, is to be 
found in its architectural history, which is a little 
better authenticated. The building is evidently 
very old, but its walls and roof are in excellent 
repair, and very little, if any, of the original wood- 
work, excepting rafters and joists, are original. 
The style, however, is distinctly of the period 
claimed for the structure, although Montcalm did 
not die in it, but across the street. 

Madame de Pean’s house, which really was the 
residence of the garrison surgeon, Doctor Arnoux, 
at the time of the conquest, in which the French 
Commander died after the defeat of his forces, is 
a large and interesting specimen of mansion of the 
period of the middle eighteenth century in Quebec. 
The stone from which its walls are built is partly 
dressed, and the window openings have dovetail- 
ing of a lighter stone. The roof, of course, is 
pierced by a host of dormer windows, which light 
the third story. The entrance, at one end of the 
wide front, is severely plain, and the steps to the 
first floor lie within it, owing to the narrow side- 

124 


IN THE FRENCH COLONIES 


walks which are characteristic of the old city. 

Another early type of dwelling, which dates 
from the early eighteenth century, is one that 
fronts on St. John Street, Quebec. It has a wide 
front, and an immensely high pitched roof, from 
which are two rows of dormers, the upper row 
being very small openings. This type, excepting 
for the high roof, and the double dormers, is 
more of the type the French Colonials introduced 
into Louisiana, and a few specimens of which re- 
main in New Orleans today. 

As might be supposed, the climate of the South- 
ern city dictated a different form of building to 
the French from that they had found useful in 
Canada. In Quebec one is struck by the fact that 
the general character of the building styles in 
dwellings has not appreciably been changed in two 
hundred years. In other words, one still finds 
there comparatively recent specimens of what 
might be called French Colonial architecture. This 
statement is not true of all types of structures, 
for business houses and government buildings dis- 
close the later and modern influence, but in gen- 
eral there is a disposition to keep the ancient city 
old in appearance, for its chief commerce is that 
of welcoming tourists within its gates. Quebec 
lives in the past, but it has a future. 


125 


CHAPTER VIII 


IN THE FRENCH COLONIES 


ARDINAL RICHELIEU is credited by Ed- 
CG mund Burke for organizing that immense 

scheme for making France one of the first 
trading powers of the world, which included am- 
ple provisions for the proper establishment and 
government of Colonies, but he did not have the 
leisure to perfect his plan. It was, says Burke, 
“reserved for that great, wise and honest min- 
ister Colbert, one of the ablest that ever served 
any prince, to bring that plan to perfection, to 
carry it in a great measure into execution, and 
to leave things in such order that it was not diffi- 
cult, when favorable circumstances offered, to 
make France one of the first trading powers in 
Europe, and her colonies the most powerful, their 
nature considered, of any in America.” 

The same author describing France’s posses- 
sions in North America, wrote that they ‘‘consist 
of an immense inland country, communicating 
with the sea by the mouths of two great rivers, 
both of them of difficult and dangerous navigation 
at the entrance; and one of which is quite frozen 


126 


IN THE FRENCH COLONIES 


for almost half the year, and covered with thick 
exhalations and fogs for the greater part of the 
rest. They divide this vast country, which has 
our Colonies on the East and Northeast; the Span- 
ish on the Southwest and Southeast; and on the 
Westward that unknown tract of land which 
stretches to the South Sea; into two great prov- 
inces; the Northern of which they call Canada, 
and the Southern Louisiana.” 

What Burke had to say of conditions in Canada 
more than a century and a half ago is true, to an 
extent, today, so far as the eastern part of Canada 
is concerned. “The nature of the climate,” he 
wrote, “severely cold for the most part, and the 
people manufacturing nothing, shows what the 
country wants from Europe; wine, brandy, cloths, 
chiefly coarse, linen and wrought iron.” It is true 
that some of this demand is satisfied today by 
other parts of Canada, where the weather is more 
conducive to manufactures, and agriculture. 

Even at the time he wrote it appears that, ow- 
ing to the poor navigation of the St. Lawrence at 
certain times of the year, the Canadians believed 
it cheaper to buy their goods in New York. Of 
the character of the inhabitants, Burke wrote, “‘So 
much do the French exceed us in industry, econ- 
omy, and the arts of conciliating the affectations 
of mankind, the things that even balance all the 
disadvantages they naturally labor under in this 
country.” 

In 1757, Montreal was regarded as inacessible 
to all craft but canoes, and for a long period this 
disadvantage resulted in keeping down the size of 
the settlement; but a hundred years altered all 

127 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


that, and for the last century it has been the chief 
city in Canada. 

Writing in the year mentioned, Burke alludes 
to Quebec being better situated, as it is many 
leagues nearer the sea, from which, however, it 
is one hundred and fifty leagues distant, as he 
notes. “The town,” he continued, ‘‘is divided into 
an upper and a lower. In both the fortifications 
are strong, and the houses well built. They have 
a grand cathedral and episcopal palace, a hand- 
some college of Jesuits, three monasteries of men, 
and as many of women; and the town is covered 
by a regular and beautiful citadel, in which the 
Governor resides. This city, though the capital 
of Canada, is, however, not very large. It contains 
about seven or eight thousand inhabitants at the 
utmost. 

“From Quebec to Montreal, which is about one 
hundred and fifty miles distant (it is really one 
hundred and eighty), the country on both sides 
of the river is very well settled, and has an agree- 
able effect upon the eye. The farms lie pretty 
close all the way; several gentlemen’s houses, neat- 
ly built, show themselves at intervals; and there 
is all the appearance of a flourishing colony; but 
there are no towns or villages. It is pretty much 
like the well-settled parts of our colonies of Vir- 
ginia and Maryland, where the planters are whol- 
ly within themselves. 

“With all the attention of the court of France 
to the trade and peopling of this as well as their 
other colonies on the continent, they have not yet © 
been able thoroughly to overcome the consequences 
of those difficulties which the climate, whilst the 

128 


IN THE FRENCH COLONIES 


place was unsettled, threw in their way; their 
losses in the wars with that brave and fierce na- 
tion of Iroquois, who, more than once reduced 
their colony to the last extremity, and the bad 


CHATEAU RAMEZAY, MONTREAL 
Built 1705. 


navigation of the river St. Lawrence, which is an 
evil incurable, have kept back the colony. There- 
fore, though it is the oldest of all the French es- 
tablishments, and prior to our settlement of New 
England, the inhabitants are not above one hun- 
dred thousand souls. Some, indeed, reckon them 
but at forty thousand.” 
129 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


The same writer noted that the great river St. 
Lawrence was the only location of the French set- 
tlements in that part of the continent. Of Louis- 
iana, he wrote in enthusiasm, declaring that in all 
respects, it was a much finer country than Can-— 
ada, owing to the flatness of the land and of the 
“delicious climate” found there. However, it did 
not thrive as rapidly as did Canada in those days. 


We have seen that France’s possessions were 
enormous in extent, and that they were peopled 
only by small settlements. For almost a century 
Quebec was virtually the only city in the French 
colonies. It was, from the beginning, the capital, 
but it did not thrive as rapidly nor to the same 
degree as other and later towns in the same col- 
onies. ; 

In Louisiana, the Southern territories of France 
in the New World, New Orleans for a long period 
was the only town of importance, and, even there, 
owing to complications, progress was of small 
growth. 

The method of building in both sections of 
New France was identical. First came the fort- 
ress to protect the settlement from the natives, 
and around it, or within its enclosure were the 
quarters of the governing officials. Then, as small 
dwellings increased in number and importance, 
came the church, and along with it the seminaries 
attached to the religious community. 

Thus, it was the rule to place the greatest ef- 
forts upon the erection of the church structures 
with the public approval. The Church in New 
France was the foundation upon which more de- 


130 


BASILICA, QUEBEC 
Original building dates from 16383 


3 131 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


pended than was the case with the English colo- 
ies, consequently, to this day some of the best pre- 
served structures in French Canada are the 
churches. The state of repair in which they are 
kept is one of the marvels to those who have 
seen how these sacred edifices are kept in some 
other parts of the world. 

The Seventeenth century was at its end before 
New Orleans was founded, or almost a hundred 
years after the founding of Quebec. Its growth 
was slow for a time, notwithstanding the fact 
that it lay in a more temperate climate, and that 
it did not have the blasting winters of the north. 

In 1726 Madeleine Hachard, who had joined 
the Ursulines in Paris, prepared for missionary 
work in the new land, found upon her arrival 
with the party in New Orleans that the convent 
was not yet finished, so the party of ladies for 
the new institution were quartered in Bienville’s 
hotel. As this structure was described as the 
“finest house in town,” Sister Madeleine’s picture 
of it which she wrote to her father is not without 
interest. 

“A two-story building with an attic...... ” she 
outlined it to her parent, “‘with six doors in the 
first story. In all the stories there are large win- 
dows, but with no glass; the frames are closed — 
with very thin linen, which admits as much light 
as glass. Our town is very handsome, well con- 
structed and regularly built, as much as I could 
judge on the day of our arrival; for, ever since 
that day we have remained cloistered in our dwell- 
ig ee The streets are large and straight; the 
houses well built, with upright joists, filled with 


132 


IN THE FRENCH COLONIES 


mortar between the interstices, and the exterior 
_whitewashed with lime. In the interior they are 
wainscotted. The colonists are very proud of 
their capital. Suffice it to say that there is a song 
currently sung here, which declares that New Or- 
leans is as beautiful as Paris. Beyond that it is 
impossible to go.” 

From this description it will be noted the influ- 
ence climate plays in the size and character of 
windows ina house. The windows in French Can- 
ada are not particularly large and they are not 
especially numerous, excepting in a few instances, 
such as the old palace of the Archbishop of Que- 
bec, a structure which dates from the very early 
part of the eighteenth century, but which has had 
a modern gable, much ornamented, added to it, 
and thus disguises the really great age of the 
structure. 

The numerous doors on the ground floor of the 
New Orleans structures is one of the character- 
istics of the Colonial French architecture, which 
still survives in a few buildings. The use of mor- 
tar or stucco, was used both by the French and 
by the Spanish, during the regime of the latter, 
and consequently it is not always easy to deter- 
mine the origin of an ancient house there, unless 
one has some documentary evidence. 

The old houses, meaning those of the early set- 
tlement, are all of them low structures, seldom 
reaching more than two stories, and the dormers 
which are a characteristic of Quebec, are notable 
by their absence in this warmer climate. 

Normandy influenced the architecture of Can- 
ada in the colonial days, while the cities of Paris, 


133 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


Havre, and other larger towns suggested the types 
of buildings to be found in New Orleans in the 
days of the French colony. Of course, the south- 
ern city could not boast of any structure at all 
equal to the magnitude and magnificence of the 
great places in the French capital, but neverthe- 
less, in a small way, it is evident that a reminder 
of Paris was what the colonists had in mind when 
they erected a building. 

Seven years were required to finish the convent 
for the Ursulines in New Orleans and it finally 
was opened with formalities in 1734. It is re- 
garded as the oldest conventual structure in the 
United States, although, of course, it does not 
boast of the years of the Ursuline convent in Que- 
bec. 

Most of the original French buildings in New 
Orleans fell prey to the conflagration which swept 
the city in 1788. Therefore, it is only here and 
there that anything like Colonial is found. Fire 
and the ravages of warfare swept Quebec several 
times, but there are considerable remains of early 
structures, sufficient to form an idea of what the 
city presented in its infancy. In New Orleans, 
the city rebuilt after the fire, took on a Spanish 
character, and more of this type of structure con- 
sequently, have been preserved. 

> 

One of the oldest buildings in Quebec is the con- 
vent of the Ursuline nuns. It is not the original 
structure, for that was built in 1641, and both it 
and its successor were destroyed by fire. The . 
present building dates from about 1687, and, in 
the main, may be regarded as similar in design to 


134 


IN THE FRENCH COLONIES 


the original building, although, naturally much 
larger, having received additions from time to 
time since its erection. 

Like many of the other buildings in French Can- 
ada, it is constructed of stone, which was prob- 


OLD PALACE OF ARCHBISHOP, QUEBEC 
ably more easily obtained than was brick in the 
early days, and was a material with which the 
French were familiar in the mother country. 
Stone and plastered or stuccoed covered walls 
were generally found in the older parts of the city. 


135 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


Brick is a more or less modern innovation in East- 
ern Canada. In Louisiana, in the Colonial times, 
the stuccoed wall, usually whitewashed, was al- 
most the rule in city structures, and in both of 
the French colonies, but more especially in Que- 
bec, there was little that could be regarded as dar- 
ing or novel in the design of the buildings. 

This is all the more remarkable for it was about 
the time these colonies were formed that an arch- 
tectual renaissance was being experienced in 
France. There, as in England, the books of Pal- 
ladio were being studied with a view to improving 
the old familiar forms. It resulted in putting 
something of the ancient Roman and Greek forms 
into different kinds of buildings from those which 
the ancient peoples erected. It was an attempt to 
adapt for more modern times, the designs so much 
admired in the buildings of antiquity. 

A century later another era of renaissance was 
going forward in America and resulting in what 
we have been pleased to call rather indefinitely 
Colonial architecture. 

The architecture is almost severely plain in Que- 
bec. There was no disposition to draw inspiration 
from the ancient models of the Greek or Roman, 
although in some of the restorations there are 
signs that this influence was not entirely ignored, 
even if it was not a leading idea in such work. 
It is unfortunate, for students, that the work of 
restoration in some instances has almost entirely 
obliterated the original character of the buildings. 
Especially is this the case in the church edifices 
that have had to be rebuilt. 

One notable exception to this rule is to be found 

136 


IN THE FRENCH COLONIES 


in the original church of St. Anne de Beaupre, in 
Quebec Province, about twenty miles east of the 
city of Quebec. Here the original structure, hav- 
ing outgrown its usefulness by reason of its in- 
ability to hold the immense throngs that crowded 
it, the church was taken down in 1878 and rebuilt 
about five hundred feet away to give room for a 
newer and larger edifice. 

Here the original appearance of the church has 
been admirably retained, and the interior decora- 
tions of carved wood, elaborately painted in the 
most joyful colors, have been introduced just as 
they were in the church before its removal. The 
design of the church is of the simplest character. 
There is a large central door in the front, and on 
the sides are large windows, more or less Norman 
Gothic in character. But the steeple or belfry is 
interesting because it contains two stories of open- 
ings, and has a roof not unlike that of the tower 
of Independence Hall, in Philadelphia. 

This form of steeple is also found in another 
ancient church in Quebec City. This is the Basil- 
ica, which was burned a year ago, and is now 
being rebuilt, and restored to its condition before 
the fire. 

> 

The Basilica dates back to 1633, but only the 
tower, and some of the walls are so old, for the 
church was rebuilt in its present form in 1760, 
according to the guide books, but there are evi- 
dences of a later addition. The towers are differ- | 
ent in design, but the belfry follows to some ex- 
tent the design of that of St. Anne’s, which, how- 
ever, was built in 1658, and therefore, the state- 

137 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


ment might more properly be reversed: the idea 
of St. Anne’s belfry might have been influenced 
by that of the Basilica. 

In Montreal one of the most infoeesune of the 
colonial structures is the Chateau de Ramezay, at 
one time the home of the Governors of Montreal, 
and erected in 1705. The chateau was erected by 
Claude de Ramezay, Governor of Montreal, for 
his official residence. At the time of its building 
it may be said to have been the seat of Govern- 
ment for that section of the country. Later it 
was the headquarters of the fur trade in Canada, 
and for a time after the British conquest in 1760, 
it became the Government House of the resident. 
It has an interest for Americans inasmuch as it 
was the headquarters of the Continental Army in 
Canada during the early years of the Revolution. 
It may be recalled that it was the meeting place 
of the American Commissioners, among them 
Franklin, who went north to enlist the Canadians 
with the American cause. Even Franklin’s efforts 
failed. The French Canadians refused to ally 
themselves with the Americans. 

Although it is a low, rambling structure, the 
chateau is a building of great interest. The front 
is one and a half stories in height, but in the rear 
the building is two and a half stories from the 
street level. The rooms are spacious, and indica- 
tive of the period in which it was built. The base- 
ment story contains the bakery, the kitchen, and 
an immense vault, which one will be told was used 
as a prison by some of the early Governors. The 
walls are of stone, very thick, covered with stucco 
and painted white. Exteriorily the only acknowl- 

138 


ENTRANCE, ST. SULPICE, MONTREAL 
Building dates from 1685 


139 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


edgement paid to the artistic is to be found in 
the Norman tower. Otherwise the building is par- 
ticularly plain, and even the interior woodwork is 
not very ornamental, excepting in those apart- 
ments which one is bound to suspect is of much 
later origin than the building itself. The apart- 
ments, for the greater part, are as plain as the 
cells in a monastery. A row of trees in the gar- 
den in front of the chateau, interferes with the 
obtaining of any adequate photograph of the fa- 
cade. 

Some of the Post-Colonial structures in Mon- 
treal reveal British influence rather than French. 
This is true of some of the ancient residences in 
the old part of the town. The oldest buildings in 
Montreal are those of the ancient Seminary of St. 
Sulpice. A part of the Seminary is said to have 
been built in 1685, but it is probable that the 
facade is of a somewhat later date, particularly 
the entrance, with its square clock and bell tower 
above it, more Spanish in suggestion than French. 
It is quaint enough to give the appearance of age 
one suspects. The windows, it will be noticed, are 
French, a style which is now being adapted by 
the most modern of metal window manufacturers. 

It is curious to find that a style which the 
French have maintained for centuries suddenly 
being adopted as the best type for dwellings of 
the newest design in this country. 

The Church of Notre Dame de Bonsecours, 
which is probably the oldest in Montreal, dates 
from 1657, but there is nothing in the present 
structure, with its highly ornamental spires and 
statues, to suggest the original building. It is ad- 


140 


IN THE FRENCH COLONIES 


mitted that the old edifice was reconstructed in 
1771, and the guide books remark of it truly, that 
it was spoiled by tasteless restorations. 

The story French Colonial architecture has to 
tell is one of the characteristic desire for strength 
and utility, rather than for the largely ornamen- 
tal, peculiar to the thrifty character of the French 
people. Such Colonial architecture as is to be 
found in Eastern Canada today is not likely to in- 
spire more than here and there a suggestion in 
simplicity in design. Plainness is the keynote to 
the architecture, and it is remarkable that in 
New England, where it might be thought the idea 
of strict adherence to economical construction 
would be the dominating influence, there is more 
that is ornamental in the design than is to be 
found in Canada. Yet, the French Colonies were 
founded at a time when the French kings were 
lavishly bestowing their money upon structures 
of great beauty and a French Renaissance in arch- 
itecture was under way. 


141 


CHAPTER Ix 
IN THE SOUTH IN THE 


EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 


N THE South, as well as in other parts of the. 
| Colonies, French as well as English, there 
were numerous styles in houses and in public 
buildings, in the Eighteenth century, yet from 
out of all this variegated architecture there is to 
be found what may be called characteristic types. 
Generally speaking it may be set down as a 
formula that the Colonial French settlers built 
of stone; the Spanish, of stucco, with more orna- 
ment around doors, windows and in iron work; 
the English in New England chose wood for their 
structures, and the Middle Colonies, especially in 
Pennsylvania and New York, and in the Southern 
Colonies, along the Atlantic seaboard, made more 
general use of brick in their construction. 

The use of materials, as may be imagined, had 
something to do with the style of architecture 
chosen for each. This is essential and, in a 
measure, is a component part of all architectural 
styles. One could not build a great cathedral of 
wood, though one may, and frequently does, build 


142 


SOUTH IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 


a barn of stone. In those days as in these, the 
selection of building materials went hand in hand 
with the design of the structure to be erected. 
Naturally the workers in those days did not have 
the wide range of styles to choose from, even had 
they been so inclined. They were not seeking nov- 
elty so much as they were providing comfort and 
convenience, so long as it could be attained eco- 
nomically. In a few instances, such as in the 
houses of the powerful and wealthy of the time, 
what were regarded as palatial houses or man- 
sions were occasionally erected. 

To a large extent, it is these houses of the great 
that attract attention in the present day, and 
when one speaks of Colonial architecture the 
mind instantly recalls one or another of these 
specimens. However, they were the smallest part 
of the architecture of the time, but as they have 
survived in greater number tban the more humble 
buildings, they receive more attention of students. 

There is good reason for this situation, for they 
represent the best of the styles then in use, and 
so far as their designers could express themselves, 
were things of beauty. They are worthy of study, 
and a fountain of inspiration for the architects 
of the present time. The revived Colonial build- 
ing is a more correct structure than were those 
erected in the Eighteenth century, but even so, it 
loses something by very reason of its correctness 
of line. In other words, the woodwork today is 
the product of a mill, while in the Colonial times 
all the woodwork was the product of ingenious 
carvers and joiners. Their work did not have 
the perfection of line, but they did give it the 

143 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


personal touch, which never can be achieved by 
a mill. 

One of the peculiarities of Colonial architec- 
ture in the Southern settlements was the piazza, 
or porch, or portico, as the elevated platform 
around the houses or in front of them, are indif- 
ferently termed. As a matter of fact, although 
this feature is popularly supposed to have been 
indigenous in the Southern Colonies, it really did 
not originate there, but in the West Indies, espe- 
cially in Jamaica, where the British, being an 
ingenious and practical people, designed the piazza 
to suit conditions found there. 

In the anonymous History of Jamaica, pub- 
lished in 1740, we have several descriptions of 
the style of buildings erected there at that time. 

“The Governor’s house,” says the writer, “faces 
the Great Parade in Spanish Town; one part of 
it consists of two stories. It was lately rebuilt 
by his grace the Duke of Portland, and is of stone, 
avery commodious house. A little court adjoins 
to the great dwelling house, where several hand- 
some apartments, now commonly used only for 
lodging his excellency’s servants. It has a garden 
towards the west, which is generally kept in ex- 
cellent repair.” 

This paragraph gives some idea of the charac- 
ter of elegance maintained by the ruling class in 
Jamaica. The houses were spacious but low, owing 
to the frequency of earthquake and hurricanes, 
the latter occurring with great regularity at cer- 
tain seasons of the year. 

Speaking of the public buildings of the chief 


144 


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AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


town, the same writer describes the courthouse, 
“where the chief justice and his associates sit in 
time of Session,” as a “small square building, 
about forty foot each way.” 

But the general character of the dwellings of 
the planters or persons of the better class is dis- 
posed of in these words: 

“The gentlemen’s houses are generally built 
low, of one story, consisting of five or six hand- 
some apartments, beautifully lined and floored 
with mahogany, which looks exceeding beautiful. 
They have generally a piazza, to which you ascend 
by several steps, and serves for a screen against 
the heat, and likewise is a way of enjoying the 
benefit of the coolness of the air. In the towns, 
there are several houses which are two stories; 
but that way of building is disapproved of be- 
cause they seldom are known to stand the shock 
of earthquake, or the fury of the storm.” 

The negro slaves were pitifully housed, ac- 
cording to the same authority, “‘having,’ as he 
says, “nothing but a parcel of poor, miserable 
huts, built of reeds, none of which contain up- 
wards of two or three persons.” 

Those who like to trace the origins of certain 
types of modern structures may be interested in 
the description of the general type of dwelling 
in Jamaica in 1740, as outlining what we have 
come to know as the bungalow. The reasons for 
the latter in the Twentieth-century are radically 
different from the reasons that inspired the orig- 
inal type in Jamaica in the Eighteenth century, 
and it may be mentioned, as we go, that the only 
mahogany that finds its way into the modern 

146 


SOUTH IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 


bungalow enters as furniture and not as flooring 
nor aS mural panelling. 

As soon as the Southern planters became more 
or less opulent they began to erect large mansions 
with great porticos and piazzas. Sometimes these 
were two stories in height, as seems to be more or 
less typical of Louisiana, where there survive 
some specimens, but these are of the later decades 
of the Eighteenth century where they are not of 
the early Nineteenth century. 

As a matter of fact what has become known 
as the typical planter’s dwelling in the South does 
not date before the Revolution, and it may be 
said to be one of the last designs of what with any 
propriety at all could be called the Colonial period. 

In the period just before the Revolution and 
immediately after it, a part of Louisiana, par- 
ticularly New Orleans, was a Spanish possession, 
having been given to the Spanish King by his 
generous friend, the King of France, much to 
the chagrin of the French settlers at the mouth 
of the Mississippi. This led to that locality tak- 
ing on a Spanish tone in its architecture, which 
was more joyous and ornamental than were the 
French styles that had preceded it in New Or- 
leans. 

It should be remembered that Louisiana was a 
Colony long after the American Revolution, being 
a possession of Spain until 1800, and then of 
France, until it finally was ceded to the United 
States in 1803. 

From 1768 until 1800 it was a Spanish posses- 
sion, but the Spaniards never succeeded in pacify- 
ing the French there whom they ruled. It was 

147 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


not a very populous district even at the time it 
came into the possession of the United States, if 
one may judge from the description of New Or- 
leans, as it was in 1803, which George W. Cable 
has given in his “Creoles of Louisiana.” 

Mr. Cable pictures a spectator viewing the town 
from the masthead of a ship in the harbor at 
the time, and writes: ‘One looked down upon a 
gathering of from twelve to fourteen hundred 
dwellings and stores, or, say, four thousand roofs 
—to such an extent did slavery multiply the out- 
houses. They were of many kinds, covered with 
half-cylindrical or flat tiles, with shingles, or 
with slates, and showed an endless variety in 
height and in bright confusion of color and form 
—verandas and balconies, dormer windows, lat- 
tices and belvederes.” 

Thus, after almost a century of settlement, there 
were only fourteen hundred of decent dwellings 
in New Orleans. It is easy to picture the slow 
progress of the crescent city during the period 
when it was a colony. By that time Eastern 
Louisiana was settled by Anglo-Americans, but 
on the west bank of the Mississippi there still 
were some French and Spanish communities. The 
fact is that neither France nor Spain ever gave 
much thought to this southern Colony, and such 
progress as New Orleans has made has been un- 
der the American flag. 

They were much the same type of quiet, pious, 
contented people as settled in Canada, and they 
were not empire builders in either province. 

From the southern Colonies we have derived 


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two of the Colonial types found in the larger 
mansions, yet neither of the styles originated in 
the South, although it was there that they re- 
ceived that American treatment that naturalized 
them, and really made them different from any- 
thing of the kind to be found in England or 
France of the same time. 

Like the styles in dress, styles in architecture 
were imported from Europe, but were not com- 
mon in the Colonies until about the time they were 
being abandoned in the mother country. 

Mount Vernon, which was erected in 1743, but 
later altered, is a striking instance of the Amer- 
icanization of an English type of country house. 
It is true that its exact prototype does not exist, 
but the general character survives. Early in the 
Eighteenth century those architects who made de- 
signs and published them in handsome volumes, 
some of them in folio, showed interest in a coun- 
try house, which consisted of a single block, or 
the dwelling proper, and two end buildings, con- 
nected by means of a circular colonnade, or clois- 
ter-like structure. 

Aside from this feature which is to be found 
in Washington’s home, it will be admitted that 
the only other characteristic of this historic house 
is its portico, or piazza, from the deck of which 
the first President was pleased to gaze upon the 
beautiful waters of the Potomac. 

One of the early designers of this type of house 
was John Crunden, who published in his ‘‘Con- 
venient and Ornamental Architecture,” which 
went through at least two editions, one which 
the writer has seen being that of 1788 and de- 


150 


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151 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


scribed as “a New Edition,” many designs of 
“most grand and magnificent villas.” His de- 
signs began with a farm house and traveled 
through various grades of dwellings up to the 
magnificent villa. 

Like the majority of the British architects of 
his period, Crunden was a disciple of Palladio, 
and he acknowledges his indebtedness to the Ital- 
ian, by calling his most magnificent design a villa - 
in the style of Palladio. 

It is easy to understand that none of these 
designs, nor even those of Gibbs, another of the 
group of British architects to which Crunden be- 
longed, and who published a volume of designs in 
1728, could be used without alteration by Ameri- 
ean builders of the time. The requirements in 
the Colonies were vastly different from those of 
the gentry in the England of the early Georges. 

> 

In the South especially, there was a demand 
for something more suited to the conditions pre- 
vailing there. It was a land of slavery, and while 
slaves were almost universally used as household 
servants, the majority of the slaves were used to 
work in the fields. The problem of keeping the 
races sufficiently near to be useful as servants, 
and at the same time far enough apart for social 
reasons, called for a different type of country 
house than was required in England where all the 
servants were of the same race and naturally 
more intelligent and not so different in the social 
scale. 

Mt. Vernon was evidently suggested, so far as 
the design went, by one or another of these Brit- 

152 


153 


Built c. 1743 


MOUNT VERNON, VA. 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


ish books of architecture which were common 
about the time it was erected. While the English 
country house was constructed of stone, the home 
of Washington, on the banks of the Potomac, was 
erected of wood. This difference of materials 
alone would authorize a departure from the Brit- 
ish designs, such as one of Crunden’s, for in- 
stance. However, it followed in general layout 
the mansions of Crunden and of others of his 
contemporaries, with such variations as the Vir- 
ginia builder and the owner believed desirable. 
It is a curious fact that this type of country house ° 
never seems to have penetrated further North 
than the lower counties of Pennsylvania. It is not 
found in New York nor in New England. 

What seems to be popularly regarded as the 
type of old Southern plantation house, while dat- 
ing back to the Colonial period, really is some- 
what later. However, until 1902 there was in 
Louisiana, near New Orleans, one of these typi- 
cal buildings known as “Concord.” In this house 
two of the Spanish Governors during the period 
in the late Eighteenth century, had their resi- 
dence—General Gayoso de Lemos, who was one 
of the Spanish Commissioners who was engaged 
in 1795 in making the transfer of the Mississippi 
to the United States being one of them. The 
building, of course, dated to a still later period, 
but probably not earlier than 1780. 

It was destroyed by fire in 1902, but a picture 
has been found which shows it before its destruc- 
tion. From this it will be seen to have been a 
large, square-planned structure, with a second 
story piazza running around the entire house, 

154 


SOUTH IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 


and reached from the ground by two winding 
stairways under a pedimented portico. The build- 
ing was a three-story structure with dormers 
emerging from the roof in front and back. 

The pedimented portico is another influence de- 
rived from Palladio, although its builder may not 
have heard of that architect, but of his students, 
or rather, of their books of designs. 

The origin of this feature which was frequently 
used by architects in the early Eighteenth cen- 
tury, is found in the early Grecian buildings in 
Athens. Especially is it the feature of the famed 
Temple on the Ilissus, and in a more elaborate 
manner was it a part of the Erechtheum. While 
these structures are among the best types of pure 
Tonic, when their designs were translated by Brit- 
ish architects and again adapted by American 
builders of the Colonial period, they were trans- 
formed into a degenerate kind of Tuscan. 

The modern use of this feature seems to date 
back to the villa near Vicenza, which was de- 
signed by Palladio. Lord Burlington, who did a 
great deal to advance British architectural taste 
in the early years of the Eighteenth century, cop- 
ied this for his villa at Chiswick, and it got into 
Gibbs’ book, as the feature did into the published 
works of other contemporary architects. 

In New Orleans there is to be found an example 
of the Spanish public building of Colonial days. 
This is the Cabildo, which dates from about 1780. 
It was the arched ground floor, and above it a 
rich second story, with wide windows, and orna- 
mental iron balconies. The third story contains 
some interesting but ugly dormers breaking 

155 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


through a Mansard roof. It is a bit of Seven- 
teenth century planted in the Eighteenth. The 
facade is broken by a pedimented structure, but 
without columns, excepting for the pilasters, 
which adorn the front wall of the building. 

In Maryland, the so-called plantation house was 
not so familiar as it was further South, yet it is 
not correct to even infer that Maryland produced 
a country house that might be deemed typical. 
One of the most interesting examples of the later 
period of Colonial country house in Maryland is 
Whitehall, which was erected by the Royal Gov- 
ernor, Horatio Sharpe about 1760. 

It is a fine example of the country house with 
the Palladio portico, which after having been in 
disuse for a long time was being revived in Eng- 
land then. The architects who were then, about 
1760, making use of this style, were adding what 
they considered to be improvements upon it. 
However, when this design was introduced in the 
Colonies it was simplified to a large extent. Thus, 
while the portico of Whitehall calls to mind the 
entrance of Fonthill, in England, built just before 
it, the only resemblance lies in the Ionic portico, 
with its pedimented roof. The stairways leading 
to Fonthill are high and elaborate in their form, 
while in Whitehall, as in the Woodlands, in Phil- 
adelphia, built in 1770 by William Hamilton, 
which also seems to be derived in part from the 
same original, the portico is the mere shadow of 
that of the great English house. 

Whitehall, which lies just outside of Annapolis, 
Maryland, overlooks the Chesapeake Bay, while 
the Woodlands is situated upon a hill and com- 

156 


SOUTH IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 


mands the Schuylkill River, a stream of great 
beauty at the time Hamilton resided there, but 
now an eyesore, owing to the encroachments of 
commerce and industry. 

This Palladian portico may be said to have been 
the last phase of American Colonial country house 
architecture, certainly it was the last imposing 
feature introduced into the large country man- 
sion. After these examples which seem to have 
been built between 1760 and 1770, the porticos, 
where they existed at all degenerated into a kind 
of porch, which we are pleased to term Colonial 
porch in these days when this feature is being 
added to modern dwellings of more modest pro- 
portions. 

This Palladian portico is not found north of 
the lower counties of Pennsylvania, although there 
were examples that seem to have been founded 
upon this design in New York, but these are of 
later date. 

We have not much space to refer to Church 
architecture of the period, and, indeed, it might 
very well make a book by itself, but it is well 
to understand that until about the end of the 
Colonial period, the churches usually had earth 
floors, and, of course, were not heated in the win- 
ter time. These facts, of course, were interpreted 
in the designs of the buildings, in the South, es- 
pecially, for the churches were entered on a 
level with the pavement, and chimneys absent 
from their skyline. On the other hand, few of the 
Colonial churches were large, and as for design, 
they were as varied as they were numerous. There 
was for the Established Church, of course, a set 

157 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


plan, which was not deviated from, but the arch- 
itectural design proper and the materials used 
then, as now, depended upon the desires of the 
parish in which they were erected. 


158 


CHAPTER X 


NEW ENGLAND AFTER 1750 


N New England in the later Eighteenth cen- 
| ws. or the later Colonial Period, roughly 

speaking from 1750 to the end of the Revolu- 
tion, or 1783, the outstanding characteristic of 
the Colonial architecture was the demand for 
greater elaboration, and, it must be confessed, a 
confusion of detail. 

There are reasons to suppose that the Pal- 
ladian window in the eastern wall of Christ 
Church, Philadelphia, was built about 1735. In 
that event it probably was the first window of 
that design to be erected in the Colonies. Cer- 
tainly no other example of this style is nearly so 
perfect as this one in Christ Church, and, as its 
design was not adapted to mansions in its vicinity 
for some years, it may be said that Connecticut 
where may be seen an example in a mansion still 
standing, can point to the only other very early 
Palladian fenestration. The Connecticut example 
is really only an adaptation and dates from 1732. 
It is part of the entrance design to the Capt. 
John Clark house, South Canterbury. 


159 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


The whole subject of the Palladian window is 
a particularly interesting study, and something 
more may be said of it in a later chapter. At 
present it is only necesary to say that in the 
few examples of its introduction into the walls 
of New England houses the effect has not been 
very happy. 

Sometime about 1753 the New England builder 
began to elaborate the entrance porches to the 
houses he constructed. At first this elaboration 
was more characteristic of desire than it was 
remarkable for accomplishment. In other words, 
it was ambitious but not much more than an evi- 
dence of good intentions. But it must be recalled 
that at that time the classic influence which began 
to overspread England had not been fully felt in 
the Colonies. But the period of waiting was a 
short one, and by 1760 in New England, as In 
other parts of the country there was on every 
hand evidence of an awakening from the primi- 
tive types and architectural style began to show 
that improvement which, excepting for a genera- 
tion in the first part of the Nineteenth century, 
has continued ever since. There have, of course, 
been lapses from good taste, especially during the 
fifties and sixties in the last century when the 
iron fronts asserted themselves, though fortu- 
nately not in dwelling architecture. 

> 

About 1760 there was evidence of improvement 
in design in the larger New England house. The 
classic revival in Europe had reached these shores 
and the builders who sought to be modern in 
their time naturally followed the trend or the 

160 


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161 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


fashion as it may be called. They were not sat- 
isfied with servile copies of what the British arch- 
itects were doing, and in their adaptations of the 
British design they contrived to give an air of 
originality to their work. 

While some of this work is admired today, par- 
ticularly by motor parties passing through the 
beautiful, tree-lined streets of a New England 
town, the truth is that in the main the designs 
are over-elaborated, and the simplicity of the 
Greek or Roman design which had been the mo- 
tive was subjected to indignity. 

There is another side to the subject and it 
never should be forgotten in the event that one 
inclines to criticism colored with harshness, that 
these New England builders of the Eighteenth 
century had to translate their designs into wood, 
while the Greeks intepreted their designs in stone. 
Truth to tell, the New England builder of the 
Colonial period was a genius, working as he did 
in a medium that at first seemed to be stifled by 
classic limitations. 

Some of the Palladian windows which one 
finds in second stories, over classic entrances fre- 
quently are as much a contortion, as the entrance 
itself, while the latter seems to have been inspired 
by the beautiful lines of the Temple on the Ilysus, 
requires no little imagination to reveal its origin. 

During this period it is found that many of the 
larger houses erected in New England had a row 
of five windows in their second story. It might 
be said that this fenestration plan is distinctively 
New England, and not, as some have believed, a 


162 


NEW ENGLAND AFTER 1750 


general feature of the Colonial house. The win- 
dow placement of houses built contemporary with 
these, found in the South and in Pennsylvania 
do not appear to have followed similar plans, 
although it is possible to find here and there such 
a windowed house both in Pennsylvania and in 
the South. 

The subject of placing windows in a front was 
an important one. The size of such openings 
in the Colonial period when artificial lighting was 
scarcely a substitute for daylight at all, and it 
was necessary to have as great illumination from 
the outside as was feasible, taking the size of. 
the house and of the apartments into considera- 
tion demanded nice calculation. 

Many of the builders’ books published by arch- 
itects in England at this time gave considerable 
space to rules for the proper size of rooms and 
windows, according to the dimensions of the plan. 
It is for this reason that all Colonial houses have 
large windows. If one will compare them with 
the windows in modern houses he will realize 
that the Colonial builder had a different problem 
from the architect of today, who knows that with 
modern systems of lighting, heating and ventila- 
tion, that he may make the rooms and the win- 
dows any size that appears to be economical. 
Indeed, it was just such an impulse that caused 
the builder of the Eighteenth century to construct 
the houses he did. He, too, strived for economy, 
and he found the solution in an abundance of 
daylight let into the house. It is this feature 
that lures the modern traveler into the entrancing 
regions of the interior of a Colonial mansion. On 

163 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


every side he finds a flood of daylight, while he 
probably has only known the pleasures of electric 
lighting. 

> 

While it is true that some of the Palladian win- 
dows found in New England houses occasionally 
verge upon the atrocious, it never should be for- 
gotten that the men who made them were work- 
ing at considerable disadvantage. They were not 
artists, but carpenters and artisan carvers, who 
were doing the best they could, and at least re- 
vealed the beginning of a taste for the classic. 

In their efforts to compose an impressive en- 
trance they occasionally committed an artistic 
crime. It is only necessary to see the way some 
of these Palladian windows have been crowded 
into an entrance which evidently was unsuited, to 
understand what is meart by the use of the term 
artistic crime. Frequently the work thus intro- 
duced may be admired if isolated for the purpose, 
but as a part of the whole it often draws upon 
itself condemnation for lack of proportion and 
discrimination on the part of the designer. 

Another feature to be noted in New England 
houses of the last half of the Eighteenth century 
is the gradual abandoning of the gambrel roof. 
So far as one may venture a date for this exodus 
that of 1775 is as serviceable as any other. Cer- 
tainly there evidently were few houses erected 
after that date in which this style of roof ap- 
pears, unless one includes some of the very latest 
buildings, which seem to offer as many features 
of the Colonial period as the architects and own- 
ers can remember. 

164 


SHELDON TAVERN, LITCHFIELD, CONN. 
From the White Pine Series of Architectural Monographs 


165 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


It was during this later period of the Colonial 
in New England that doorways began to assume 
the character of works of art. Here again, pro- 
portion seems to have been forgotten, for many 
of the doorways and doors are excellent in them- 
selves, but they are appended to houses that are 
unfitted for them by their design and general 
character. Of course, they are admired by many 
who lose sight of the fact that they really belong 
to another style of house altogether. 

But this spirit of over-elaboration is one of 
the characteristics of this period of American 
Colonial architecture wherever it is found. The 
spirit of masterly restraint had not been felt by 
these ambitious artificers. They were over- 
whelmed by the renaissance of the Classic which 
had passed over Western Europe, and using the 
books derived from England for their entire 
knowledge of the subject, they introduced the 
Classic revival in American architecture. Taking 
all in all they worked very well, if not always 
wisely. 

In some of the New England houses erected 
during this period will be found a feature which 
does not appear to have been characteristic in any 
other of the sections of the Colonies, although it 
would scarcely be accurate to assert that it never 
occurs, and this is the placement of the window 
openings in the facades of large houses. It has 
been observed that frequently the builders placed 
windows in pairs, or twins, and between them 
arranged an isolated window of the same size. 
Thus we have the five window front on the second 
story level already referred to. It should not be 

166 


NEW ENGLAND AFTER 1750 


understood that the five winows invariably were 
arranged in this fashion. They were not, and a 
different arrangement was even more frequent, 
but this characteristic has been pointed out to 
emphasize the fact that this feature is to be looked 
for in New England Colonial architecture rather 
than elsewhere. 

One of the best examples of the better designs 
of the later Colonial period in New England is 
the Vernon House in Newport, Rhode Island. 
This mansion was built about 1768 and thus may 
be said to have been among the last of the good 
examples of this middle period of development. 
About 1770, and just as the Revolution was open- 
ing, the last stage of the development of the 
Colonial design was beginning, not only in New 
England but in the Colonies generally. 

The habit of alluding to these various stages of 
development as Georgian, pre-Georgian, or later 
Georgian, as has been mentioned before, is not 
exactly descriptive of the types. It has been the 
aim of this series to point out that the Colonial 
types were chiefly geographical, and that Geor- 
gian does not express the idea intended to be con- 
veyed. 

It is true, of course, that they were designed 
during the reigns of the Georges. However, as 
that family of British Sovereigns reigned for al- 
most a century, and at the end nearest to us, 
lasted until well into the Nineteenth century, long 
after the Colonies had ceased to be appendages 
to an European state, the culture, or such culture 
as the Americans of the time possessed had be- 


167 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


come more cosmopolitan, and their ideas of arch- 
itecture, as of many other things showed a ten- 
dency to absorb various other influences. 

The spectacular Napoleonic era had the effect 
of turning all art and literature into new chan- 
nels, and the Americans followed the lead, ab- 
sorbing, adapting and improving upon the new 
thought. 

It is to the works of Sir William Chambers, an 
English architect, who died in 1796, that we owe 
much of what we regard as typical of American 
Colonial architecture, although he never designed 
a single house that might even with courtesy be 
said to have been the prototype of an American 
dwelling of the period. Yet in his works, which 
dealt with what he termed Civic Architecture, 
he pointed the way to an adaptation of the classic 
forms of ancient Greece and Rome. 

There was a contemporary of Chambers, who 
is regarded in some quarters as his superior as 
an architect, Robert Adam, who also, through 
the medium of his published works, was respons- 
ible in a measure for the trend that the American 
builders of the later Eighteenth century took in 
their designs of dwelling houses. Adam, who 
was two years younger than Chambers and who 
died two years before the latter, was a lover of 
detail, and as it was classic in its general theme, 
he became the most popular architect in England 
and his work had sufficient popularity in America 
to have been freely used by the carvers and build- 
ers of the later Colonial period. 

To both these men, and in a measure to Wren, 
who was of another time, the best features of our 

168 


169 


PIERCE-JOHONNOT-NICHOLS HOUSE, SALEM 


Built 1782—From Cousin & Riley’s “Wood Carver of Salem” 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


American architecture is due. It should be borne 
in mind that while Wren and Chambers designed 
for works in stone, the American builder in the 
Colonial period had to build in wood or brick, 
excepting for rough stone, which was not well 
adapted to these classic lines. Roughly speaking, 
it might be said that Chambers influenced exte- 
rior design, excepting for the detail of doorways, 
and Adam was the master to whom the American 
carver of the period looked for his inspiration for 

interior decoration. 

Adam, it will be recalled, although an architect, 
made a number of designs for furniture, and for 
mantles, doorways. Many know of him only as 
a creator of furniture styles, but that was not 
his original profession, for he occupied the office 
of Royal Architect in England. 

While Chambers derived his inspiration from 
the temples of Greece or Rome, Adam was influ- 
enced by the newly revealed treasures of the bur- 
ied city of Pompeii. The one therefore was an 
advocate of the massive, and the other of the deli- 
cate as expressed in the details of interior decora- 
tions found on the walls of Pompeii houses. 

a 

In referring to these men as masters for the 
American builders of the Eighteenth century it is 
not intended to minimize the work these native 
artisans accomplished. Neither should it be 
thought that they possessed no originality. In- 
deed, had they been deficient in this respect, we 
never should have had the remarkable examples 
of their taste we are proud to possess today. 

All originality lies in the successful working 

170 


NEW ENGLAND AFTER 1750 


out of an inspiration, which seldom if ever is 
really original. The originality consists in revis- 
ing, improving or otherwise adapting some other 
work that has gone before. It should also be a 
work of some popularity, too, because while any 
person can do something different, it requires gen- 
ius to do something that is original. 

With this explanation it may be asserted that 
the New England builder of the late Colonial 
period displayed originality. He worked out for 
his own use ideas which could not have been suc- 
cessfully transplanted without such treatment. 
On the whole, his work is a pleasure, despite some 
deficiencies which were unavoidable, when his 
limitations are taken into consideration. 

Some of the most interesting of the examples 
of New England architecture of the last Colonial 
period and what might be called the Post-Col- 
onial, in which the general motives in ornamenta- 
tion and construction were similar, are to be found 
in Salem, Massachusetts. A great deal of this 
most admired Salem architecture is due to one of 
that city’s native geniuses, Samuel McIntire, 
whose work has been the subject of an informa- 
tive and entertaining book by Frank Cousins and 
Phil. M. Riley. 

The authors of that work say truly that “va- 
riety and the opportunity for comparison render 
Salem architecture unique and especially valuable 
in that it embraces three dissimilar types—one 
might say four, since they were developed in four 
distinct periods. First came the lean-to, the aver- 
age date of the examples still standing being 
about that of the witchcraft delusion of 1692; 

val 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


next followed the gambrel-roof type about 1750; 
then came the three-story, square wooden house 
of 1785, and finally the three-story, square brick 
construction of 1818. None of these aspires to 
manorial splendor of the South, but each frankly 
interprets the refinements, the domestic spirit, 
and the reasonable degree of dignity of the peo- 
ple, quite as true as in the preposterous period of 
brick construction as in the earlier years, when 
the snug comfort of the lean-to sufficed.” 

The Colonial period was waning as young Mc- 
Intire entered into the work of building and de- 
signing houses for his native town. He was born 
in 1757, and having learned his trade of carpentry 
and wood carving with his father, he engaged in 
business on his own account after his father’s 
death. At this time the country was in the midst 
of the Revolution, but some of the young carver’s 
best work was done then. One of the best 
examples of his art, both as architect and as 
carver, is to be found in the mansion known local- 
ly as the Pierce-Johannot-Nichols house, which 
was erected in 1782. 

McIntire was a disciple of Robert Adam, but 
none of his designs is a servile copy of the British 
architect. The Salem carver wrought out for 
himself designs, inspired by the examples of his 
master, and it may truthfully be said that some 
of his work is not at all beneath that of the Eng- 
lish designer. 

McIntire was a remarkable man. He was orig- 
inally a wood carver, but he had aspirations and 
designed many of the best looking buildings still 
to be seen in Salem. He was one of the architects 

172 


i 


3 


is 


A DOORWAY BY SAMUEL McINTIRE 


From “The Wood Carver of Salem” 


173 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


who competed with a design for the national cap- 
itol at Washington, but, as is well known, he was 
unsuccessful, the winning design have been made 
by an amateur, Dr. William Thornton. 

As a consequence of having had McIntire for 
one of her sons, Salem today contains more inter- 
esting examples of Colonial interior decorative 
woodwork than any other part of New England. 
Indeed, of the same period in which he lived, it 
is possible that no other section of the country can 
point to so much of the same kind of work that 
is good. 

There was a finish about his work that proved 
him to be an artist. He had that great care for 
detail, that appreciation for proportion and form 
that made him particularly happy in the expres- 
sion of the ancient classic motives in wood. 

His mantles, fireplaces, doorways, stairs, are 
excellent, and well worthy of the study that arch- 
itects in all parts of the country are giving them. 

In the period after 1750, New England only 
began to enter the field of brick construction on 
an extended scale. Of course, there were here 
and there some structures composed of brick, but 
they were exceptions. 

Naturally this change of materials was reflect- 
ed in the design of the architecture. Fortunately 
the change took place at a time when the newer 
forms were particularly adapted to reproduction 
in brick. However, the best examples of the new 
styles carried out in brick with stone trims, was 
to be found in Pennsylvania and in the Middle 
Colonies generally. 


174 


CHAPTER XI 


PENNSYLVANIA AFTER 1750 


HE year of 1750 does not mean a great deal 
T as being either a point of departure or ar- 
rival in the architecture of Pennsylvania. 
By that time there had been evolved a type of red 
brick house that was to be found in its chief city, 
Philadelphia, and it was not greatly different from 
what might have been found in that city years 
before that time. However, as it is necessary in 
such a work as this to have reasonable divisions of 
time for reviewing such progress as was made, 
the middle of the eighteenth century has been 
selected as the suitable date for ending one epoch 
and beginning another. 

First of all in order to properly visualize the 
setting that architecture was to have in Pennsyl- 
vania during the period from 1750 until the end 
of the Colonial regime we should have at hand a 
few facts, statistical and historical. 

In 1750 Pennsylvania, while not the most pop- 
ulous colony, being exceeded by Virginia, which 
had a population of nearly 300,000, largely on ac- 
count of its geographical location and the pro- 


175 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


gressiveness of its citizens, which was a result of 
its helpful laws, was one of the leading provinces. 
Its chief city, Philadelphia, with its 15,000 in- 
habitants in the city proper, which was only a 
small portion of the present municipality, was the 
leading city of the country. The province itself 
had a population of about 185,000, or about 100,- 
000 less than Virginia. All these figures seem in 
the present time as insignificant, but they must 
be viewed in their proportionate relation to other 
towns and provinces at that time. 

Philadelphia had become the metropolis of the 
Western world, and its shipping probably was the 
most extensive of any place on this side of the 
Atlantic at that time. Interpreted this means 
that in Pennsylvania was to be found the largest 
number of men of affairs, of wealth and of posi- 
tion, although, naturally all of the Colonies could 
boast of men of mark and many of them are 
remembered to the present day, while many of 
those who were highly regarded in Pennsylvania 
in the middle eighteenth century are today either 
locally legendary names or entirely unknown to 
all but the student of historical research. 

But the real meaning of all this is that in 
Pennsylvania there were many rich families, and 
a large number of moderately rich persons to have 
an influence upon the kind of homes they erected 
or lived in. To so great an extent this was not 
the rule in the other provinces in 1750, although 
we find still standing many notable old mansions 
in all of the original states. 

A prosperous, wealthy, and cultured people are 


176 


PENNSYLVANIA AFTER 1750 


necessary for any progress that is made in archi- 
tecture of a country. Such persons, when they 
build, are able to afford conveniences, comforts 
and also to spend money on what !s purely sought 
for its effect upon the spiritual being, that which 
calls for artistic design. Men live in cabins only 
when they cannot afford palaces, and the am- 
bitious cabin dweller always has in view the 
ownership of a more pretentious home. The de- 
velopment of architectural design has been largely 
dependent upon the wealth of a people. In ancient 
days only rulers or the men of enormous wealth 
for their time, could afford to employ an architect 
to erect their homes. Others were compelled to 
dwell in homes erected either in part by their own 
hands, or such assistance as they could afford 
from mechanics who had not risen to the level 
of the master builders, or architects. 

Even in the period we are discussing architects 
in the Colonies were merely the more efficient 
builders, usually carpenters or stone masons. The 
advent of architecture as a profession in England 
in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth cen- 
turies, caused the publication of numerous books 
of designs and explanation which were found ex- 
tremely useful by the American builders until 
they began, little by little, to originate and de- 
velop designs of their own, mainly dictated by the 
character of the buildings to be erected, and 
their location. 

In the neighborhood of Philadelphia were many 
quarries of various sorts of stone, none of them 
particularly good, but being near to the place of 
building, and cartage being a problem in those 

LUE 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


days of horse-drawn vehicles, with roads that 
were bad at all times of the year, these quarries 
were gladly called upon to furnish such stone, 
and a kind of bluish marble they afforded, for 
buildings erected in that city. 

> 

In the examples that survive of that period 
under discussion there are evidences that the 
builders were beginning to feel their way se- 
curely; that for the first time they were able to 
throw off restraint of tradition, and do something 
different. As has been explained they knew that 
their apprenticeship was at an end because on 
every side they recognized evidences of increased 
wealth and culture. In Philadelphia, and its 
neighbor, Germantown, the class that had ac- 
cumulated much of the world’s goods had become 
more numerous. In Philadelphia they had al- 
ready established themselves in what was re- 
garded as fashionable sections, Front street, 
Arch street and Market street among others, were 
lined with large houses, all of them more or less 
of a type, and all of them of red brick. 

These Philadelphians had reached a stage where 
they felt the necessity for summer homes, and in 
those days they did not have to go to long dis- 
tant places for their summers as they now do. 
The Schuylkill river then was a stream of great 
beauty, although it is to be scarcely believed after 
one sees it today. On both banks within what are 
now the limits of the city of Philadelphia the 
better class of persons erected their summer es- 
tates. Usually these included a small farm upon 


178 


NMOLNVWUESD 


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09LT 1wNg 
ASNOH MAHO AHL ‘ 


Nad 


GHAITIO 


179 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


which they raised the vegetables that were used 
also in the city home. 

The builder therefore had been allowed a little 
more freedom both in the matter of design and in 
the selection of materials, to say nothing of the 
character of the interior finish. Some of the men 
who had reached the age of retirement and had 
only to enjoy their incomes lived all the year round 
in these mansions on the banks of the beautiful 
river. They had nothing to call them to the city 
in the winter months, when the roads were in the 
worst possible condition, so they spent both sum- 
mer and winter on these estates. 


> 

One of the evidences of the improved state of 
the country might be indicated by what might be 
regarded as trivial proof. This was none other 
than the peculiar type of stone lintel. There is a 
pecularity about the design of this ornamental 
bit of the window trim that has indelibly associat- 
ed it with what we call Colonial architecture. 
Indeed, in the more modern adaptations of this 
early American style, it sometimes is the only 
feature which allows of the structure being rec- 
ognized as of Colonial design. As for the remain- 
der there is that adherence to Greek or Roman 
models that we call classic. 

This stone lintel began to be more generally 
used as the eighteenth century wore on, especially 
in Pennsylvania, which appears to be its home. 
There appears to be a connection between this 
feature and the increased use of the Pennsylvanian 
marble, for we find it more common as this native 
stone was drawn upon in greater quantities for 

180 


PALLADIAN WINDOW, CHRIST CHURCH 
rected c. 1735 


181 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


building operations. It will be found that the 
stone lintel with the keystone in the middle was 
not used on dwellings before the middle of the 
eighteenth century. As a matter of fact its gen- 
eral use was not introduced into building there 
until after the Revolution. It is true that ex- 
amples of this design may be found in houses that 
were erected before the Revolution, especially in 
Cliveden, the Chew House in Germantown, which 
was erected about 1760. 

In Mount Pleasant, the mansion of Captain 
John Macpherson, in Fairmount Park, Philadel- 
phia, there are lintels over the windows of the 
same design, but they are of brick, covered with 
stucco. This mansion dates from about 1765. In 
The Woodlands, the seat of the Hamiltons, in 
Philadelphia, which dates from about 1770, there 
are no evidences of lintels of this description, 
which would indicate that this building was 
merely altered and enlarged in the year assigned 
from the original structure which dates from 
Liae: 

At the same time a great deal of interest was 
beginning to be taken with interior ornamenta- 
tion. The Peters house, at Belmont, although 
dating from 1742, exhibits some finely modelled 
ceilings, the time of whose introduction in this 
country probably is of much later date. Indeed, the 
period of this form of interior decoration may be 
said to have begun with the general acceptance of 
the Adam designs, because all of them reveal the in- 
fluence of that British architect and designer. 
Therefore, it may be regarded as a certainty that 


182 


PENNSYLVANIA AFTER 1750 


Belmont did not receive its ornate ceilings until 
the last half of the eighteenth century, and very 
probably was not until after the Revolution. 

The original Peters house at Belmont is much 
smaller than the building which the visitor to 
Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, today sees standing 
on the hill. It was a comparatively small struc- 
ture, aS were many of the seats that lined the 
Schuylkill in the early days. John Penn’s seat, 
Solitude, which now lies within the grounds of 
the Philadelphia Zoological Gardens, also is a 
small house for so important a personage, and it, 
too, has the modelled ceilings, which we know 
were not placed there until after the Revolution, 
since the house dates from 1784, and therefore, 
just outside of the true Colonial period. 

But neither Belmont or Solitude are character- 
istic of Colonial design in Pennsylvania, although 
both of them display indisputable evidences of 
having belonged to the period, since both show that 
leaning to the Classic forms of Greece and Rome 
that is indicative of the later period American 
Colonial architecture. Neither of them were 
grand mansions, but what in these days would be 
regarded as bungalows. 

On the other hand there is no such suggestion 
about either the Chew House, in Germantown, or 
the Woodlands, both of which are mansions in size 
and importance. The Chew House is a good ex- 
ample of the first efforts in Pennsylvania to in- 
troduce exterior ornamental treatment, and natur- 
ally the ambitious architect overdid the work. The 
house is entirely too small for the urns that adorn 


183 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


its facade, and they do not appear to have any 
excuse for being placed where they are, because 
the remainder of the front is exceedingly plain. 
The doorway, which to a certain extent resembles 
that of Mount Pleasant is not so good in propor- 
tion as the latter. Yet, notwithstanding these 
criticisms the Chew House is one of the best ex- 
amples of the later Colonial period in Pennsyl- 
vania. 
\S 

In the last half of the eighteenth century the 
Palladian window so-called, began to be used in 
dwelling architecture in Pennsylvania and often 
with better judgment than accompanied the efforts 
of the New England builders to do the same thing. 
This window form was rather a familiar one to 
dwellers in Philadelphia and its surrounding coun- 
try for a long time before 1750. As has been 
mentioned one of the best, if not actually the 
finest example of this design to be found in the 
country was the one erected in the east wall of 
Christ Church, Philadelphia, about 1735. 

It should be borne in in mind that in those days 
the Palladian window, was not called by the name 
of the famous Italian architect, but was known 
as the Venetian window, although the reason for 
this is not so plain. One does not find the so- 
called Palladian window in Venetian buildings, 
but it may be that a mistake has been made in 
the allusion to Vicenza, the home of the great 
architect whose name has been applied to the 
design. There one will find in the entrance to 
the house designed by the Palladio and always 


184 


enti J 2aeryanemegneancenanercemnenncteenc ston germ ste ssnoncoryreacene recommcpetiamninnanteresnpennnsoonen 


THE WOODLANDS, PHILADELPHIA 
Showing a Palladian window 


185 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


called his home, but in which it has been authora- 
tatively asserted he never resided, the suggestion 
for the design of window that has been so much 
admired in this country. 

It seems that if one really desires to get at the 
origin of the three-arched window arranged after 
one of the ancient Orders of architecture, one 
must go back to the triumphal arches to be found 
in Rome. The Arch of Constantine, especially 
shows the arrangement that very well might have 
sat as the original of the Palladian window. But 
it will be found that in many of the early churches 
there have been aranged together three windows, 
the central arch much higher than those beside 
it, and it is entirely within the bounds of possi- 
bility that this design was not mere arbitrary 
piece of art, but one that had a deeper meaning 
for the early Christian, and it was indicative of 
the Trinity. 

It is true that the form which the Palladian 
window has assumed, that the foundation rests 
upon the architecture of Palladio. In his Basilica 
at Vicenza, the arcades, which have won the ad- 
miration of all students of architecture, Palladio 
adapted the Ionic Order to a series of arches, and 
these were in groups of three, the central arch 
being semi-circular at the head, and taller than 
either of those on the sides, both of which latter 
having the square archatrave and cornice of the 
same order. Palladio also may have been in- 
spired by the Aqueduct of Hadrian. However, 
when all the data had been gathered there appears 
to be excellent reasons for calling this type of 


186 


PENNSYLVANIA AFTER 1750 


window after the name of the architect who cer- 
tainly popularized, if he did not actually invent 
the design. As a matter of fact there does not 
appear to have been a window designed by Pal- 
ladio which resembles that which we call by his 
name. Those which he did design lack the purity 
and simplicity of that which has made his name 
known. ) 

While the Palladian window is not the product 
of America, it is true that here is to be found 
some of the best examples of this style. In 
England in the seventeenth century the same style 
was in use, and one has only to call to mind the 
garden front of Raynham Park, in Norfolk, Eng- 
land, which was erected in 1636, to see that the 
idea was gaining foothold in that country. A 
bow window in Brazenose College, Oxford, which 
was erected in 1666, is a step nearer the design 
as we have it in our Colonial architecture, and it. 
seems to be quite possible that in this way, the 
design descended to America, where it was im- 
mediately naturalized. 

Fletcher, in his Life of Andrae Palladio, re- 
marks of his arcades: “In the design of his ar- 
cades to the entrance halls he appears to have 
preferred the larger order embracing two stories 
with small pilasters placed behind them to carry 
the floor of the upper gallery. In the arcades 
semi-circular arches usually rest on piers in 
conjunction with the trabeated arrangement 
adopted from the ancient baths. A favorite 
arrangement (cf. the Basilica at Vicenza) how- 
ever, was one in which he divided the interval 


187 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


between two piers in three parts by small piers 
or columns with the arch only covering the cen- 
tral aperture, a combination which seems to 
have been copied from some colonnades at 
Diocletian’s palace.”” The same author also says 
that the architect employed the semi-circular Ro- . 
man window divided into three lights. 

The best proportioned Palladian window to 
be found among American Colonial buildings is 
that which is in the east front of Christ Church, 
Philadelphia. As has been remarked it appears to 
have been the first of its kind introduced in this 
country, dating, as it does from 1735, or earlier, 
and we have no available records of a similar 
design here before that time. It has beautiful 
lines, with its pilasters of red brick, and its cen- 
tral arch is surmounted by a bust of George II. 

While the Palladian window which adorns the 
south front of the old Pennsylvania State House, 
now called Independence Hall, Philadelphia, has 
been much admired, it is not so good in proportion 
as the other, although dating from a more recent 
period, 1741, and its details are not so chaste 
as those in the window of Christ Church. This 
window in Independence Hall savors of the com- 
mercial article that subsequently found its way 
into many Colonial houses. 

Philadelphia has many notable examples of 
this style of window. That in the east front of 
St. Peter’s Church is much larger and less in- 
teresting than that in Christ Church. It was 
built in 1758-61, and is by no means a model 
for those who desire a window of this character. 

It appears that the Palladian window was 

188 


TOLT 
VIHdTHaV1Hd 


‘6 


Oo 71NZ * 
LINVSVH Td LNOOW 


189 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


much in vogue for mansions in Philadelphia about 
this time, or just before the Revolution. Ex- 
amples, none of them as interesting as the more 
ancient one mentioned, are to be found in Wood- 
ford, in Fairmount Park, which building is 
variously dated 1742 and 1756; Mount Pleasant, 
usually called the home of Benedict Arnold, also 
in Fairmount Park, which was built in 1761; 
Port Royal, Frankford, Philadelphia, a dwelling 
that is dated 1762, and the Woodlands, now in the 
cemetery of that name, which is said to have been 
erected about 1770, having either displaced the 
building erected in 1742, or an alteration of that 
structure. The latter suggestion appears to be 
the more reasonable one. 

The Woodlands contains two Palladian win- 
dows used in a manner that does not seem to have 
been usual in the eighteenth century. It will be 
noted that where these windows are not found in 
churches, they are used to light stairways, or 
halls. In the Woodlands the windows are not 
used for either purpose, but to illumine apart- 
ments. Moreover they are set in recesses in 
the walls, and while they have been admired for 
the interesting details in their woodwork and for 
their proportion, they necessarily are not so im- 
posing as the one in Christ Church. 

In the Woodlands will be found one of the best 
examples of the last days of the Colonial architect 
in Pennsylvania. Even Philadelphians have not 
yet generally appreciated the excellence of this 
structure, and its design. It is entirely unlike 
anything built in Pennsylvania up to its time, and 


190 


PENNSYLVANIA AFTER 1750 


while its general facade suggests the mansion 
known as Whitehall, Annapolis, it will be seen 
that this resemblance is mainly dependent upon 
the colonnaded porch. 

While each of the Colonies could exhibit cer- 
tain excellencies in the matter of their architec- 
tural design, primitive as it was, Pennsylvania 
may be said to have largely contributed to the de- 
velopment of the first American style. Upon the 
work of the early Pennsylvania, builders, — es- 
pecially those who worked in the last half of the 
eighteenth century in Philadelphia, present day 
architects depend upon much for the spirit that 
animates their adaptations of the Colonial. 

Probably one reason for this is that in and 
around Philadelphia may still be seen some of the 
best examples of the various Colonial periods 
of architecture. Making use of harder materials 
' —tbrick and stone—there were many things they 
could introduce that appear out of place when 
applied to wooden structures, or in those in which 
wood plays a principal part. This does not mean 
that the beauties of these old builders’ designs 
are not to be sought for in the details of their 
wood trim, cornices, and doorways, for they are 
to be found only there. The stone work, as a rule, 
was merely ordinary mason’s work neither better 
or worse than that to be found elsewhere, but 
the complete design, and the assemblage of pic- 
turesque features was their own, for they had de- 
veloped it. 

We hear a great deal about the Greek influence 
in these old buildings, but it is well to remember 
that this influence came to the Colonies by way of 

191 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


England, and that their interpretation by British 
architects and builders pointed the way for the 
American builder. In England they built stone 
doorways, while here doorways were of wood, 
and that meant that the copy required adaptation. 
It is interesting to note that the adaptation is 
now more highly regarded than is the original. 


192 


CHAPTER XII 
BUILDERS, BILLS AND BOOKS 


ERE and there the student of historical re- 
H search occasionally comes across a bill for 

building in the Colonies, dated in the Eigh- 
teenth centuy. So far as the writer’s experience 
goes, no bill for this sort of work earlier than the 
eighteenth century survives.In the collections of 
the Historical Society of Pennsylvania there are 
numerous ancient bills of various descriptions, 
some of them in the seventeenth century, but he 
has not discovered among the latter any that had 
to do with building. 

In one of the earlier chapters there was noted 
the prices paid paid in Medford, Massachusetts, 
in the seventeenth century for certain kinds of 
building, including shingling, and other carpen- 
ter work, but these are town records, and not 
the mechanic’s bill for his labor and material. If 
he presented a formal bill, which is doubtful, 
none of these apparently has been preserved. This 
leaves us with the proposition that all we can 
learn from actual bills for building during the 


193 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


Colonial period is likely to be found dated, in the 
eighteenth century. 

It is from town records or Colonial archives 
that we must look for the names of the men who 
built during the days before the Revolution. And 
here we will find nothing, excepting as is to be 
expected, but public buildings. From the records 
we Shall find that it was usual then, as now, to 
enter into an agreement, or what we would call 
a contract for all structures of this character. 
Thus, we find the town of' Meadville, Masachusetts, 
in 1651 entering into an agreement with George 
Barber, a carpenter, to erect the first mill in that 
town. The amount to be paid was. not reckoned 
in money, for the town agreed to give Barber 
and his heirs forevermore, 240 acres of 
meadow land. If it should be thought that this 
was a large payment, it should be understood that 
land was not very valuable anywhere in the Col- 
onies in 1651, and 240 acres, if they were not with- 
in the township would not be worth much. How- 
ever, it establishes that a wooden mill built on 
the side of a creek, then was worth a piece of 
land that now would cover more than fifty city 
blocks in the city of Philadelphia. 

In 1763, we know from a document in the His- 
torical Society of Pennsylvania that Robert Smith 
a carpenter and builder in Philadelphia was paid 
the sum of £2250 for erecting two three-story 
houses in that city. That amount reduced to 
dollars would have meant at the valuation of the 
time about $6000. Of course in the values of the 
present day such buildings would have cost four 


194 


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Ge ph PLE MA De sean 


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a) dt alee 
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oe wy jie yf = MeL, 
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e Ci Lf Nella oe Few he, er Fe Goh 

er pea dvhng bores rales b 


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7 fang anges Se oar 


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V2 cris = 
2 ie oO Mahar ierble 
oho 8 yp 779 
A PHILADELPHIA CARPENTER’S BILL, 1773 


195 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


times as much, if constructed in the same man- 
ner. But this. is a guide to prices. 

Owing to the oldest association of master car- 
penters in this country, whose records go back 
to the year 1763, and whose other documents and 
traditions go back to the year of the society’s 
organization, in 1724, we have the names of vir- 
tually all the prominent builders in Philadelphia 
for the last two hundred years. Of course, it 
would be impracticable here to attempt to list 
them, but they may be found in a history of the 
Carpenter’s Company, published in 1866. This 
part of the subject was rather fully covered in 
the writer’s series of Early Philadelphia Archi- 
tects and Engineers. However, it may be wise 
to at least review some of these early builders 
for the sake of completeness. 

> 

Probably the earliest builder in Pennsylvania, 
of whom we have any record, is James Porteus, 
who, sometime before 1690, erected a mansion 
for Samuel Carpenter, known to local annals as 
the Slate Roof House, although there does not 
appear to be any evidence that it ever had a roof 
of that material. We also know from records 
that. John Smart, and John Brett, two carpenters, 
erected the Old Swede’s church in Wilmington, 
Delaware, in 1698, and probably had something to 
do with the erection of the Swede’s church in 
Philadelphia, which was begun in the same year. 
It seems certain that John Harrison, a carpenter 
and carver, who erected the interior work on the 
Wilmington edifice, came to Philadelphia in the 
early years of the eighteenth century and located 

196 


BUILDERS, BILLS AND BOOKS 


there as a master carpenter. Porteus died in 1737, 
evidently a very old man; Harrison also lived to 
be a very old man, and was one of the builders 
of Christ Church, Philadelphia. 

Porteus, Harrison, Joseph Harrison, Joseph 
Henmarsh, Samuel Powell, Jacob Usher, Edmund 
Woolley, who built the State House in Philadel- 
phia, since called Independence Hall; Benjamin 
Clark, and Isaac Zane were the original associa- 
tors of the Carpenter’s Company in Philadelphia, 
when it was organized in 1724. In the eighteenth 
century there were some other prominent builders 
in Philadelphia whose names are recorded in con- 
nection with important works they accomplished. 
There were among them Robert Smith, who built 
the Walnut Street Jail and who was highly es- 
teemed as an arcnitect-builder and Samuel 
Rhoads, who erected the Pennsylvania Hospital. 

All of these men were master carpenters, and 
it should be understood that in the Colonial 
period, and even during the first quarter of the 
nineteenth century, men of that trade were both 
the actual builders and the architects of the build- 
ings they erected. 

Even where contracts were made with men of 
other trades, the carpenter on the job was the 
superintendent of erection. That was very 
well understood and there were no arguments or 
contentions about it; it was the regular recognized 
custom of the time. 

The Carpenters’ Company, and subsequently, 
other similar organizations were mainly formed 
for the purpose of regulating building, and for 


197 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


aiding their members in the study of architecture. 
In Philadelphia, and probably in other cities the 
Common Council, or similar bodies, did pass 
regulations for building, but they were principally 
directed for the safety of the work. The car- 
penters found that prices were not uniform for 
certain work, and with a view to accomplishing 
this end they organized. 

In those days there did not seem to be such a per- 
son as the lowest bidder according to all the in- 
formation we have on the subject. Prices for 
every operation or part of a house was calculated 
to a nicety, and the regular price to be paid was 
recognized by every man in the trade. The selec- 
tion of a carpenter, therefore was a mere matter 
of choice and reputation for doing better or 
quicker work than another carpenter. The price 
of the work could be estimated in advance to a 
greater degree of correctness than is possible to- 
day. There were not the fluctuation of wages that 
occur in these days and even in the matter of 
materials there was no violent and sudden change 
in prices. 

But, as will be shown, the carpenter did not 
present his bill in the modern manner. That was 
done by the measurers of the Carpenter’sCompany, 
who virtually acted as examiners and accountants, 
whose word was accepted both by the owner of the 
property and the builder. This method settled 
disputes at their source, and there were compara- 
tively few in Philadelphia regarding building, un- 
less the undertaking was a large one, where there 
might arise misunderstandings. However, usually 
the measurers examined the work, and attested 

198 


BUILDERS, BILLS AND BOOKS 


to the correctness of the price and of the value 
of the work as done and did not neglect to make 
a charge for “entertainment” or “the expenses 
of the evening” as well as their regular fee. 

The majority of the bills cited here concern 
Jacob Graff, a bricklayer whose son erected the 
house at Seventh and Market Streets, Philadel- 
phia, in which Jefferson wrote the first draft of 
the Declaration of Independence. Graff would 
appear to have been a builder or operator and 
also to have been a brickmaker. In a note ad- 
dressed him in August, 1759, John Ludd, another 
builder, and possibly a measurer, wrote: 

“I have sent your account of scantling. I have 
allowed six shillings on Williams Sells account & 
twenty shillings for the chimney and if you will 
pay the balance of fifteen pounds three shills. to 
the bearer Andrew Hissler it will much oblige me 
who am your Friend, John Ludd.” 

While we do not know the operation or its ex- 
tent we have the fact that a small dwelling house 
chimney was worth about twenty shillings or, in 
the money of a later time, say, about twenty dol- 
lars. | 
A more comprehensive account is to be had of 
another operation of Graff’s. This bill is dated 
February 13, 1773, and is signed by the measurer, 
Abraham Carlile. 

This bill has to do with all parts of two small 
frame houses, excepting the chimneys and fire- 
places, which possibly Graff, being a bricklayer, 
built himself. As the bill is reproduced here in 
facsimile, it may only be necessary to note that 
the whole operation cost £36-6-3, and that the 

199 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


measuring charges and the ‘“‘expenses of the eve- 
ning” were charged off at 10 shillings. The car- 
penter in this operation was Robert Allison. 

For the benefit of those who do not understand 
the methods of the time it might be mentioned that 
a square was 100 sq. feet, thus, in the bill there 
are enumerated “three square of shingling at 11 
shillings,” and “20 square of framing and weather 
boarding, etc.’ and this work was set down at 
little more than the same rate, for the whole came 
to £15-0-0. Six shutters were worth one pound, 
five shillings and six pence, and two doors, thir- 
teen shillings. It will be noted that these were 
very small buildings, but they may give an idea 
of the prices in the period just before the Revolu- 
tion. 

There is another bill to Graff, dated November 
24,1761. This is for plastering a house, and was 
due Hastings & Couthorn. From this it will be 
note that 487 square yards of lath work cost — 
eighteen pounds four shillings and two pence, 
and that 516 square yards of rendering cost six 
shillings a yard or twelve pounds, eighteen shill- 
ings. The whole plastering job cost thirty-one 
pounds, two shillings and two pence. 

We have a later bill for very much the same 
kind of work, and one or two items from it may 
be illustrative. This bill was for carpenter work 
done by John Crayn for Jacob Graff “at a frame 
building in 10th Street near Race,” in Philadel- 
phia, and it must have been a much larger building. 
For ‘10 square, 90 feet or roof grooved weather- 
boarding, 29 feet of barge board, 30 feet of box 
‘Cornish’, 30 feet of gutter and 7 square 90 feet 

200 


BUILDERS, BILLS AND BOOKS 


of floor boarding,” his price was twelve pounds, 
nineteen shillings and seven pence. 

For “29 feet of double raising 20 steps of stairs, 
6 windows, box and stud cased, and 83 lights of 
sashes, 1 small shelf, and 2 sets of mouldings 
rounds doors and windows,” the price was eight 
pounds, eight shillings and three pence. This 
whole job was measured by Samuel Jones who 
calculated the price at a total of fifty pounds, 
seven shillings and three pence. Evidently there 
was something that had to be adjusted because 
the bill was cut down, and forty-seven pounds, 
twelve shillings and six pence was “agreed to.” 
The date of this bill is October 26, 1785. 

From documents in the same collection it is 
learned that the average price of hauling build- 
ing materials was three shillings a load, and 
about a thousand brick was contained in a single 
load. This much is found in a bill of John Hench- 
man, dated in 1783. 

> 

It appears that it was customary, especially on 
governmental work, to have a banquet when the 
roof rafters were raised in place, or when the 
greatest height of the building was reached. 
Something of this same idea remains until the 
the present day when the steel constructors will 
raise an American flag and attach it to the top- 
most steel girder when it has been raised and 
attached in place. 

In the Colonial period such an event was sig- 
nalized by more ceremony and festivity. We 
have the records of the builder of the State House 
in Philadelphia, Edmund Woolley, who sent in a 

201 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


bill for fourteen pounds, twelve shillings and 
eight pence assigned to ‘Expense in raising the 
Tower of the State House.” This was dated 
November 4, 1741. As this bill has some historic 
interest as well as being an illustration of the 
methods of the period it is here given in full: 


95 loaves. of Bread. oes... . 0 ass « os ee £0" toa 
CLS, clba Bacon) .o..ge ee eer os sos at. 7ds" aoe 
14836 cID Beek 2 okie ne he es) al 316052 % Baer 
Potatoes-and Greens ...........05. 090 Oo.) Tee 
ROOSLAMCH EY oa kos HARRELL ee at 4s y Ms Ba 
1 barrels of Beer _...s%52%. /< oge eee at 1&3, 1 3 
44 (lb. AMULton, ..oo. eis oe Siac es eee at 344d 0 12 8 
8734, ADAVeal. 3. a ees eee ee at $140.0 fist 
30 Ib. Venison : 06. 604 oa ek ee ee at 2d 0 5 
TUPnips.§ 56 ce oc aie w se wes wlohe sone ee een 0 1 26 
Pepper. and Mustard ........ . aan cee 0 1-6 
2 Jugs and Candles, Pipes and Tobacto........5. OQ po eoe 
Butter, 9s, 8d; Turkey, 4s; 4 pair Fowls, 9s..... 1 2 8 
1% of a hundred of Flour... 2. ose Oo du38 


Two former Hookings at getting on two Floors, 
and now for raising the Floor, Fire Wood, etc. 3 0 0 


£14 ites 


The Carpenters’ Company had a Book of Prices 
and a standing Committee on Prices, but they were 
secretive about both, and evidently were working 
toward that style of monoply which was charac- 
teristic of the ancient Guilds of England. The 
Book of Prices could only be viewed in the Hall 
of the Company, and of course only exhibited to 
members. This system finally led to the forma- 
tion of other independent societies of carpenters 
in Philadelphia, and about the year 1800 the 
company relented and published the Book of 
_ Prices. 

This Company did not have any regular Meas- 
urers, but gave certificates for measuring work 
to members. The by-laws stated that any member 

202 


T9ZT “VIHA THGVIIHd ‘ONIUALSV Id HOW TTd 


yy) Lt e YY 
yr A Be x ees OO hy La : 
SI igen CS) 4 6g 
ae” 


O+bS25/.—- ~ yi OE a, 7Zewiie ey ; 
BAG om hgh, a WRAY Z fp poh ies is 
Ln ole gory n tryin yy nae oem aa aes iy oe 
ise ody rep y oie , UH re Pinte Pies 

“RL + LG oogtaaadys CyrlN, 


RE, 


203 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


might obtain such a certificate, “provided always, 
that such applicant before he receives his certifi- 
cate, shall make an oath or affirmation, before 
an Alderman or Justice of the Peace, that he 
will well and truly measure and value carpenter 
work agreeably to the Standard Book of Prices 
of the Company, etc.”’ These By-laws, it should 
be mentioned, were passed in 1790, but it appears 
to have been the rule of the organization for 
years before that time. 

The upshot of the proceeding was to force into 
existence another organization of House Carpen- 
ters in the City of Philadelphia. This association 
became known as the Practical House Carpenters 
Society, and was actually incorporated in 1811, 
although it seems to have been in existence since 
the year 1786. In 1812 this organization pub- 
lished its book of prices as a kind of challenge 
to the older body. The volume is an excellent 
guide to prices of the later period of the Colonial 
and the first years of the American Government. 

It would be impracticable to attempt to reprint 
this extensive list, which is very detailed and ac- 
counts for every stick of wood that then went 
into the building. However, one quotation that 
seems to have a bearing on the Colonial archi- 
tecture may be given. This list refers to Pilas- 
ters, and it appears in both the first Book of 
Prices, that of 1812 and the second book, that 
published in 1819. There is some difference, and 
the quotations will be taken from the former 


volume. 
PILASTERS Cents 
Plain 514 inches wide, per foot lineal..........+.+. 14 


204 


205 


DESIGN FOR FIREPLACE, BUILDER’S MAGAZINE, 1778 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


Open do, same breadth, per foot lineal............. 20 
Ditto fluted do. Go.  .. + 5 ceenereie ou 30 
Ditto counter do. to parts so done. ....sasmya. + = se 26 
If broader than 5 inches, add per inch 2 to......... 4 
Attic bases to Pilastérs 514 inches wide, each from 60 to 67 
Capitals,-piain, each frome... .. ... .. se keener 50 to 75 
Plinths with sub-plinths, each from............... 83 to 50 
Ditto of red cedar or mahogany, each............. 40 to 67 


These quotations will give some idea of the 
prices for this kind of work, but if one is more 
interested he should consult the volumes them- 
selves for fuller information. 

In New England, also, they had their books 
of prices, but, as will be seen from a few quota- 
tions from the “General Rules of Work for House- 
wrights in Newburyport,’ Massachusetts, which 
was published in 1808, and, consequently, after 
the Colonial period, but closely connected with 
that time, they had a different system of com- 
putation. It will be made apparent from a study 
of these books that skill that was better than the 
average did not appear to count for a great deal. 
It probably only had an influence in bringing to 
the possessor of remarkable ability work that his 
lesser able competitors failed to obtain. 

This Newburyport book is interesting in show- 
ing what was regarded as a day’s work in New 
England, in 1803. 


Framing wooden buildings, 125 superficial feet per day’s 
work. 

Beams not joisted, 200 ditto per day. 

Beam’ and plates for brick buildings, 125 feet per day. 

All kinds of angular framing, 100 feet per day. 

Hewing and raising paid for by the day. 

Making a door frame for brick building from 3 to 4 feet 
wide, and from 7 to 8 feet high, 214 days per frame. 

Ballustrades with turned bannisters and broke round 
posts, 38 feet per day. 


206 


BUILDERS, BILLS AND BOOKS 


Plain shingling, 100 superficial feet per day. 
Shingling hips, 20 feet running measure per day. 
Pilasters, equal to the Tuscan order, including pedestal 
and cornice, 4 feet per day. 
Do. equal to the Ionic, 40 days. 
Do. equal to the Doric or Corinthian, 50 days. 
If circular, add 10 days. 
Finishing Venetian window, equal to the Tuscan order, 
days’ work. 
Do. equal to the Ionic, 10 days. 
Do. equal to the Doric or Corinthian, 12 days. 


~] 


As one may believe that the methods of work 
had not advanced a great deal in efficiency, since 
the Colonial period, we here have a fair idea of 
both the time required on certain parts of the 
later Colonial house and the cost of such work. 

> 

In the “Country Builder’s Estimator, or the 
Architect’s Companion,” published in London in 
1758 (Sixth Edition) the author, William Sal- 
mon, jun., devotes a chapter to showing how the 
builder is to apply the rules he has set down for 
him. As this part of the work gives an insight 
into the methods of the time, a few of the para- 
graphs may be quoted here: 

“As it is necesasry for every person before he 
begins to erect a building,’’ remarks the author, 
“to have designs or draughts drawn upon paper, 
vellum, &c. as well as for ease and expedition, as 
for preventing mistakes in the carrying on of the 
intended design; so likewise it is absolutely nec- 
essary for the prevention of errors in estimating 
the charge thereof. And in large structures, it 
is not amiss if a Model be made of the whole, 
either in pasteboard, wood, clay, or the like, 
whereby the fabric would be seen at once in min- 
iature; however, when you are to estimate the 

207 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


charges of erecting any building, the length, 
breadth, height, etc. being given, first draw a 
draught of the ground plot or ichnography of 
each floor in a particular paper by itself, with 
the length, breadth and height of each apartment 
intended; because many times the conveniences 
or contrivances in one story differ from those 
in another either in bigness of chimnies, 
or division of the rooms, some being larger 
in one story than in another; as also the 
form and fashion of each front, together with 
doors,, windows, and ornaments (if any be 
designed), are to be shown in the _ ortho- 
graphies, or draughts of the uprights. And if 
for a timber building, the scantling or dimensions 
of every particular piece, I would advise be set 
in its proper place to which they belong in the 
diagram, in characters, which will be of use to 
the workmen, in carrying on their work more 
readily, as well as for estimating the charge. 

“The draught being drawn, and the dimensions 
of every particular being inserted as before de- 
scribed, you may then proceed to the estimation 
thereof.” 

In 1799, there was incorporated in Philadel- 
phia the Bricklayers’ Company, and this organ- 
ization continues to the present day. Like the 
Carpenters’ Company it was a trade association 
‘and gave some attention to relieving distress of 
its members. At the same time it arranged prices 
for bricklaying work, as the Carpenters’ Com- 
pany did for the work of the carpenters, who 
were its members. 

It has been obvious that during the eighteenth 

208 


6é 


‘ 


ISNOH 21018 viuvnajhisuurd 10f 1apou sv paasas yoryn 
HUYNLOALIHOUVY WO MOOd., Sa@dIN WOU NDISAG 


Le 


209 


AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE 


century the American builder was assisted by us- 
ing books published in England for tradesmen 
who were deficient in architectural knowledge, 
and not any too competent in estimating for work 
done, or to be done. 

What appears to have been the origin of the 
design for the State House in Philadelphia, now 
known as Independence Hall, is to be found in one 
of these books. This was the work of James 
Gibbs, one of the contemporaries of Sir John 
Vanbrugh. His ‘Book of Architecture,” was a 
large folio, filled with ingenious and artistic de- 
signs for houses, and parts of buildings, and was 
published in 1728, or about the time Andrew 
Hamilton was agitating for a new State House 
in Pennsylvania. It will be noted that there are 
marked resemblances between Gibbs’ design and 
the building as we know it. 

In 1774 Francis Newbery, who may be best re- 
called as Oliver Goldsmith’s publisher, began the 
publication of what probably was the first maga- 
zine relating to architecture and building. This 
was called “The Builder’s Magazine,” but it really 
was merely the publication of a book in parts, 
and not a magazine even in view of its time. The 
parts each consisted of several pages of a gloss- 
ary on architecture, and a few plates with de- 
criptive text. This work continued until 1778. 
Usually it is found bound in a single volume, 
quarto. Sometimes it bears the date of 1774 on 
the title, and sometimes it is announced as “Sec- 
ond edition’ and the date is 1779. In all 185 
plates were issued in this work, but so far as the 
American builder was concerned, he could only 

210 


BUILDERS, BILLS AND BOOKS 


use them for suggestions, as the designs did not 
meet the tastes or demands of the Colonists. One 
of the plates as reproduced here is one that may 
have been useful, for it pictures a fireplace and 
mantel. 

Many of the architectural books contained 
designs for ceilings, and paneled walls, as well 
as staircases of different dimensions. But the 
American builder interpreted all of this to suit 
his requirements, and probably no American 
building may be said to have been an exact copy 
of any one of the various designs which evidently 
were used by the Colonial builder. 


211 


“ 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


This list is not intended to be more than suggestive. In the 
main it includes the volumes consulted in the preparation of this 
book, and is by no means complete. 


Builder’s Magazine, The: or a Universal Dictionary for Archi- 
tects, Carpenters, Masons, Bricklayers, etc. By a Society 
of Architects. The Second Edition. London, 1779.  Illus- 
trated. 4to. 

Burke: Account of the European Settlements in America. In 
two volumes. London, 1757. 8vo. Maps. [This work is 
attributed to Edmund Burke.] 

Canada: Hand Book of the Dominion of Canada. By S. E. 
Dawson, Montreal, 1884. Maps. 12mo. 

Carrel’s Illustrated Guide and Map of Quebec: Sm. Sq. 12mo. 
Quebec, 1922 (21st Edition). 

Colonial Architecture of Salem, The: By Frank Cousins and 
Phil. M. Riley. Illustrated. Boston, 1919. 8vo. 

Colonial Architecture of Philadelphia, The: By Frank Cousins 
and Phil. M. Riley. Illustrated. Boston, 1920. 8vo. 
Colonial Churches in the Original Colony of Virginia: A series 
of sketches by especially qualified writers. 35 illustrations. 
Second Edition, revised and improved. Richmond, Va., 
Southern Churchman Company, 1908. Sm. 8vo. pp. aV7: 

Crunden: Convenient and Ornamental Architecture, Consisting 
of Original Designs for Plans, Elevations, and Sections. 
Engraved on seventy copper plates. By John Crunden, 
Architect. A New Edition. London, 1788. 4to. . 

Dix: Champlain, the Founder of New France. By Edwin Asa 
Dix, M.A., LL.B. Illustrated. New York, 1903. 12mo. 

Dyer: Creators of Decorative Styles. Being a Survey of the 
Decorative Periods in England from 1600 to 1800, with 
Special Reference to the masters of Applied Art Who De- 
veloped the Dominant Styles. By Walter A. Dyer.  Illus- 
trated with sixty-four pages of photographs. Garden City, 
De ks LUL{2* Svo. 

Edgar: Colonial Governor, A, of Maryland. By Lady Edgar. 
Illustrated. London, Longmans, Green & Co., 1912. 8vo. 

Eggleston: Beginners of a Nation, The. By Edward Eggleston, 
Maps. New York, 1897. 8vo. 

General Rules of Work for Housewrights, in Newburyport. 
Newburyport, 1805. Sm. 8vo. 

Glenn: Some Colonial Mansions and Those Who Lived in Them. 
By Thomas Allen Glenn. Illustrated. Philadelphia, 1900. 
Two Series. 

Gotch: English Home, The. From Charles Ito George IV. Its 
Architecture, Decoration and Garden Design. By J. Alfred 
Gotch, F.S.A., F.R.I.B.A., with upwards of 300 illustra- 
tions. New York (London), Charles Scribner’s Sons, N. D. 
(1918). 8vo. pp. 410. 


213 


214 BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Gwilt: An Encyclopedia of Architecture, Historical, Theoretical 
and Practical. By Joseph Gwilt, ES. ASF. RS.A. Illus- 
trated with about 1,700 engravings on. wood. Revised, 
rewritten with additions (in 1888). By Wyatt Papworth. 
New Edition (with corrections). London, Longmans, 
Green & Co., 1894. 8vo. pp. 1448. 

Harshberger: Botanists of Philadelphia and Their Work, The. 
By John W. Harshberger, Ph.D. Philadelphia, 1899. 
Illustrated. S8vo. [Privately printed.] 

Heathcote: Short Critical History of Architecture, A. By H. 
Heathcote Statham. 585 illustrations. London, Boe 
Batsford. New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, N. D. (1912). 
Sm. 8vo. pp. 586. 

Historical Magazine, and Notes and Queries, concerning the an- 
tiquities, history and biography of America. Morrisania, 
N. Y., Henry B. Dawson, Vol. I, 1867. Sm. 4to. 

Jackson: Early Philadelphia Architects and Engineers. By 
Joseph Jackson. Illustrated. Philadelphia, 1923. Large 
12mo. Privately printed. [This work originally appeared 
serially in the magazine Building, during the year 1922-23.] 

Jamaica: History of Jamaica, A New, from the Earliest Ac- 
counts of the Taking of Porto Bello by Vice-Admiral Vernon. 
In thirteen letters from a gentleman to his friend. The 
Second Edition. Maps. London, 1740. 8vo. 

Janvier: Dutch Founding of New York, The. By Thomas A. 
Janvier. Illustrated. New York and London, Harper & 
Brothers, 1903. 8vo. 

Kimball: Domestic Architecture of the American Colonies and 
Early Republic. By Fiske Kimball. Illustrated. New 
York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1922. 4to. 

King: New Orleans, The Place and the People. By Grace King. 
With illustrations. New York, 1895. 8vo. 

Leiding: Historic Houses of South Carolina. By Harriette 
Kershaw Leiding. 100 illustrations. Philadelphia and 
London, J. B. Lippincott Company, 1921. 8vo. pp. 318. 

Lodge: Short History, A, of the English Colonies in America. 
By Henry Cabot Lodge. New York, Harper & Brothers, 
1881. 8vo. 

MacKennal: Homes and Haunts of the Pilgrim Fathers. By 
Alexander MacKennal, D.D. Illustrated. London, The 
Religious Tract Society; Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott 
Company, 1899. 4to. 

Medfield: History of the Town of Medfield, Massachusetts, 
edited by William S. Tilden. Illustrated. Boston, George 
H. Ellis, 1887. 8vo. 

O’Callaghan: Documentary History, The, of the State of New 
York. By E. B. O’Callaghan, M.D. Vol. II. Illustrated. 
Albany, Charles Van mene Public Printer, 1851. 
8vo. pp. 1144. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 215 


Palladio: First Book of Architecture, by Andrea Palladio, The. 
Translated out of Italian, with an Appendix Touching Doors 
and Windows. By Pr. Le Muet, Translated out of French. 
By G. R. [Godfrey Richards]. Plates. London, 1663. 4to. 


Primatt: City and Country Purchaser and Builder, The. Two 
Books, Composed by 8: P. Gent [Stephen Primatt]. The 
Second Edition, much enlarged by William Leybourne. By 
whom is also added a Third Book, showing how to dispose 
and proportion the several rooms of a building. Illustrated. 
London, 1680. Sm. 4to. 


Quebec: Old Quebec, the Fortress of New France. By Gilbert 
Parker and Claude G. Bryan. With illustrations. New 
York, 1903. 8vo. 


Salmon: Country Builder’s Estimator, The: or the Architect’s 
Companion. By William Salmon, Jr. The Sixth Edition, 
carefully revised and corrected, with many large additions 
ene VS ae By E. Hoppus, Surveyor. London, 1758. 

m. 4to. 


Thwaites: Epochs of American History: The Colonies 1492-1750. 
By Reuben Gold Thwaites. Tenth Edition, revised. New 
York, Longmans, Green & Co., 1897. 12mo. Maps. 


Wallington: Historic Churches of America. By Nellie Urner 
Wallington. Illustrated. New York, Duffield & Com- 
pany, 1907. S8vo. 


Watson: Historic Tales of Olden Time: Concerning the Early 
Settlement and Advancement of New York City and State. 
By John F. Watson. Ilustrated with lithographs. New 
York, Collins and Hannay, 1832. 16mo. pp. 214. 

Watson: Historic Tales of Olden Time, Concerning Philadelphia 
and Pennsylvania. Illustrated with lithographs. Phila- 
delphia, E. Littell and Thomas Holden. 16mo. pp. 316. 


Watson: Annals of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania in the Olden 
Time. By John F. Watson; enlarged with many revisions 
by Willis P. Hazard. Illustrated. Philadelphia, Edwin 
S. Stuart, 1884. 3 vols. S8vo. 


Westcott: Historic Mansions and Buildings of Philadelphia, The, 
With Some Notice of Their Owners and Occupants. By 
Thompson Westcott. Illustrated. Philadelphia. N. D. 
[1877]. Sq. 8vo. 


White Pine Series of Architectural Monographs, The. Published 
under the direction of Russell F. Whitehead, Architect. 
New York, 1915-1923. 4to. Beautifully illustrated. 

Wood Carver of Salem, The. By Frank Cousins and Phil. M. 
Riley. Illustrated. Boston, 1916. 8vo. 

Wood: Dissertation Upon the Orders of Columns, and Their 
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iy 


INDEX 


Adam, Robert, architect, 
168, 170, 172, 182 
Aqueduct of Hadrian, 186 
Arch of Constantine, 186 
Architectural plans, first 
settlers were without, 1; 
early, were drawn upon 
parchment or paper, 17 
Architecture, Spanish, in 
Florida, and on Pacific 
Coast, 5; Spanish and 
French in Louisiana, 51, 
147; European influence 
on, 5; Dutch, 64-69 
Arnold, Benedict, 191 
Arnoux, Doctor, 124 


Balconies, early Philadel- 
phia houses showed many 
examples of, 84; Loxley 
House, one of the last to 
have balcony of early 
type, 85 

Barber, George, Meadville 
carpenter, 194 

Barker, John, 16 

Barker oe Pembroke, 
Mass., 

Bartram, J fa: , Philadelphia 
botanist, builds his house, 
106; probably only su- 
perintended the actual 
work of construction, 107 

Bartram House, more or 
less a copy of The Slate 
Roof House, 106; prob- 
ably finished in 1770, 
106; differs from orig- 
inal appearance, 107; 


carved stone window 
facings of, 107 

Bermuda, 24 

Beversrede, Fort, on the 


Schuylkill River, 76 


Bills, builders in colonial 
period, 193-208 

Block house, Swedish, 73 

Block houses, Swedes intro- 
duce style, 76 

Bloomaert, Samuel, 74 

Bom, Cornelius, 80 

‘“Book of Homilies,”’ 11 

Book of Prices, Carpenters’ 
Company, 202; house car- 
penters of Philadelphia, 
204; housewrights of 
Newburyport, Mass., 206 

Boucherville, Quebec Prov- 
ince, thatched roofs in, 
121 

Boyer, Alex., 76 

Bradford, Governor Wil- 
liam, describes country 
around Plymouth, 45; 
his “ History of Plimouth 
Plantation,’ 59 

Brazenose College, Oxford, 
187 


Brett, John, carpenter, 196 
Brick, none were brought 
from England, 4, 18; 
English, 29; English size 
found in early buildings 
responsible for the legend 
that bricks were brought 
from England, 29; prob- 
able that English molds 
were imported or repro- 
duced in Virginia, 29; 
for St. Mary’s Church, 
Burlington, 30; used by 
Dutch in New Amster- 
dam, 64, 66; made at 
New Amstel on the Dela- 
ware, 79; Philadelphia 
first of colonial cities to 
be built of, 82; lesson 
taught by great fire of 


217 


218 


Brick— 
London, 82; Robert Tur- 
ner on value of, 84; houses 
of in Philadelphia in 1700, 
88; in Pennsylvania, 102; 
New England makes 
greater use of after 
1750, 174; best exam- 
ples in Pennsylvania and 
the middle colonies, 174 

Bricklayers’ Company, of 
Philadelphia, 208 

Builder’s Magazine, The, 
210 

Bungalow, planters’ houses 
in Jamaica originals of 
modern, 146 

Burke, Edmund, quoted, 
126-129 

Burlington, Lord, his villa 
at Chiswick, 155 

Burr, Rev. Dr. David, 27 

Butler, Captain Nathaniel, 
24, 25 

Buttressed walls, in early 
church types, 27 

Byrd, William, of Westover, 
10; describes Virginia’s 
first settlers, 20; descrip- 
tion of earliest Virginia 
houses, 25; sends to Lon- 
don for glass and drawn 
lead, 31; builds West- 
over, 33; first native 
Virginia writer, 34; visits 
North Carolina, 34 


Cabildo at New Orleans, 155 

Cable, George W., quoted, 
148 

Carolina in 1663 described 
by Byrd, 36 

Carpenter, Samuel, 10, 88, 
196 

Carpenters’ Company of 
Philadelphia, 194, 197, 
198 

Carpenters, design struc- 
tures, 88, 89; were only 
architects found in colo- 


nies, 92; best efforts given 


INDEX 


to erection of dwellings, 


Cartier, Jacques, precedes 
Champlain on the St. 
Lawrence and erects set- 
tlement near Quebec, 110 

Caves, early Philadelphia 
settlers lived in, 80; such 
dwellings ordered demol- 
ished, 80; construction 
of, described, 81; used by 
best people while other 
dwellings were being 
erected, 81 

Ceilings, modelled, 182, 183 

Chambers, Sir William, 
architect, 168, 170 

Champlain, Samuel de, 
founder of Quebec, pic- 
tures earliest buildings of 
that city, 110; makes 
first serious attempt to 
colonize North America, 
114 

Chastes, Aymar de, 112 

Chateau de Ramezay, Mon- 
treal, 138; American 
Commissioners use it 
for headquarters, 138 

Chew House, Germantown, 
183 

Chinessing, see Kingsessing. 

Christ Church, Philadel- 
phia, Palladian window 
of, 159, 184, 188 

Church architecture, 157; 
three-arched windows, 186 

Church architecture in Vir- 
ginia, 29 

“City and Country Pur- 
chaser and Builder,” 13, 
89 


Clap-board, 49, 52; Fair- 
banks house good ex- 
ample of this form of con- 
struction, 53 

Clark, Captain John, house 
of, 159 

Classic Revival, reaches 
colonies, 160; in New 
England, 159-162 


INDEX 219 


Climate, effect of, upon 
architectural styles, 109; 
in Canada, 110, 117; in 
New Orleans, 125; French 
unable to overcome the 
difficulties of, 128 

Clove-board, 49, 53 

Colbert, Jean Baptiste, his 
past in the French colo- 
nization of North Amer- 
ica, 126 

Coleshill, England, 33 

College of Montreal, 122 

Colonial Architecture, term 
should be used with dis- 
crimination, 1;  begin- 
nings, 1; origins of, 4; ma- 
jority of books on, treat 
mainly of genealogy, 4; 
includes styles prevailing 
in the Spanish and 
French colonies in Amer- 
ica, 5; periods of, 6; 
Swedish, 7; Dutch, 7; 
influenced by environ- 
ment, 8, 142; in middle 
colonies, 9; a style that 
was indigenous, 9; in- 
fluence of books upon, 9, 
10; Smithfield Church 
one of the earliest colo- 
nial types, 27; Westover, 
Va., design followed in 
other colonial mansions, 
34; Virginia had little to 
show of, before 1700, 36; 
earliest examples of build- 
ings in, 37; indicated 
that maj jority of colonists 
came from England, 48; 
French made small con- 
tribution to American 
style, 48; Dutch influ- 
ence on, 48; settlement 
of New England not a 
period of artistic archi- 
tecture, 53; interesting 
because of "quaint char- 
acter, 54; in eastern end 
of Long Island, 60; con- 
temporary evidence of 


early Dutch family abun- 
dant, 64; early Philadel- 
phia type differs from 
types elsewhere in colo- 
nies, 84; examples of, in 
Germantown, 86; early 
buildings designed by 
carpenters, 88; differed 
in localities, 91; division 
of the subject more or 
less an arbitrary one, 91; 
improvement noted in 
Pennsylvania in first 
quarter of Eighteenth 
Century, 91; pent-house 
a characteristic of early 
Pennsylvania buildings, 
94; colonial mechanics 
and builders developed a 
style of their own, 96; in- 
fluence of Gibbs on, 96; no 
colonial “type,” 98; fen- 
estration, 98; term Georg- 
ian weak and ineffective, 
99; French, in Canada, 
109, 13838; Norman influ- 
ence seen in French Can- 
ada, 133; influence of 
Paris and Havre in New 
Orleans, 134; stucco used 
by French colonists, 135; 
Frenchwas severely plain, 
136; French built for 
strength and utility, 141; 
French Renaissance ex- 
erted no influence upon, 
in Canada, 141; South 
had many styles, 142; 
formula of styles, 142; 
materials influenced, 143; 
piazza characteristic of 
South, 147; pedimented 
portico influenced by 
Palladio, 155; origin 
found in Ancient Greece, 
155; classic Doric degen- 
erated into Tuscan by 
colonial builders, 155; 
Palladian portico, last 
phase of colonial country 
house architecture, 157; 


220 


Colonial Architecture— 


Church Architecture, 157; 
New England in later 
eighteenth century more 
elaborate, 159; introduc- 
tion and reproduction of 
the Palladian window, 
159; New England house 
improved after 1760, 160; 
classic revival reached 
colonies about 1760, 160; 
classic designs adapted 
and over-elaborated in 
New England, 162; stages 
of development of, not 
accurately described as 
Georgian, 167; influence 
of work of Sir William 
Chambers, 168; of Rob- 
ert Adams, 168; New 
England builder in later 
period displayed origi- 
nality, 171; influence of 
Samuel McIntire on, 171; 
in 1750 architects in 
colonies only good build- 
ers, 177; builders throw 
off restraint of tradition, 
178; stone lintel peculiar 
to Pennsylvania, 180; 
modelled ceilings, 182- 
183; Palladian window, 
186-190; best examples 
of various periods in and 
around Philadelphia, 191; 
American builder inter- 
preted designs from Euro- 
pean books, 211 


“Colonial Architecture of 


Salem,’’ 50 

‘Colonial type” houses, 
modern, 98; never was a 
Colonial ‘type,’ 98; fen- 
estration of, 98; in New 
England, 100; houses of 
the great give name to, 
148; revived type a more 
correct specimen, 143; 
elaboration of, during 
last phase, 159 


Colonists, first settlers 


INDEX 


brought no architectural 
plans, 1; erected crude 
dwellings, 3; some of 
those on the Delaware 
lived in caves, 3; 
brought with them ar- 


' tisans, 3; local conditions 


dictated their style of 
dwellings, 3; pioneers 
did not erect mansions, 
6; character of, 8; Vir- 
ginia settlers lived in wig- 
wams, 9; did not need 
glaziers, 17; first in Vir- 
ginia described, 20; char- 
acter of their habitations, 
22-24; in New England, 
first serious attempts at 
colonization, 37; earliest 
examples of buildings of, 
to be found in New Eng- 
land, 37; mechanics 
scarce among those in 
New England, 47; char- 
acter of, 48; French did 
not keep to type, 48; 
Dutch influenced Ameri- 
can architecture, 48; 
Puritans severe in their’ 
tastes, 54; Southerners 
erected churches, New 
England meeting houses, 
55; first Dutch, arrived, 
63; Dutch built strongly, 
64; invited by Dutch 
Company to settle, 67; 
Swedish settle New Swe- 
den, 72, 73; built log forts, 
74; introduce  Block- 
houses, 73;  Philadel- . 
phia’s early settlers erect 
cave dwellings, 80-82; 
Pennsylvania, became fix- 
tures, 82; as they pros- 
pered they improved 
their types of buildings, 
92; in Pennsylvania, their 
character, 103; - French, 
in Quebec, 109; French 
declared to exceed the 
English in industry, 127; 


INDEX 221 


Colonists— 
French built of stone, 
142; Spanish, of stucco; 
English made more use 
of brick, 142; in Jamaica 
housed Negro slaves piti- 
fully, 46 

Colonization, first honest 
attempt at, in North 
America made by France, 
113; Colbert’s part in, 126 

“Concord,” plantation 
house in Louisiana, 154 

Connecticut, close connec- 
tion of, with early history 
of New York, 57; first 
structures erected in, were 
log houses, 59; first Eng- 
lish settlement at Wind- 
sor, 59; Dutch and Ply- 
mouth men made rush for 
possession of, 59; ex- 
ample of Palladian win- 
dow, 159 

‘““Convenient and Ornamen- 
tal Architecture, ’’ 150 

Copyhold houses, 30 

“Country Builder’s Esti- 
mator,”’ 16, 207 


Cousins, Frank, quoted, 
171-172 
Crabbe, Jacobus, _ brick- 


maker, petition of, 79 
Crayn, John, 200 
“Creoles of Louisiana,” 148 
Crunden, John, his book of 
“Convenient and Orna- 
mental Architecture,” 
150; a disciple of Pal- 
ladio, 152 


Darragh, Lydia, 85 

Declaration of Indepen- 
dence, 199 

Dedham, Mass., 53 

Delaware, Dutch and Swed- 
ish settlements on, 72, 74 

de Pean, Madame, house of, 
in Quebec, 124 

de Ramezay, Claude, Gov- 
ernor of Montreal, 138 


“Discourse of the Old Vir- 
ginia Company, The,’ 26 

“Dissertation upon the 
Orders of Columns,” 14, 
16 

Doorways became artistic 
in later Colonial phase, 
166; stone in England, 
wood in colonies, 191-192 

Dormer windows, of Staat 
Huys, 69; French, in 
Canada, 120; character- 
istic of French colonial 


types, 121 
Dutch architecture, 7; high 
peaked roofs of, 64; 


‘“‘dug-out”’ houses, 68; on 
the Delaware, 72 

Dutch tiles, 18 

Dutch West India Com- 
pany, 57; established, 
62; establishes Patroon 
System, 65; advice to 
colonists, 67; trading 
post at Gloucester, 73; 
expedition to the Dela- 
ware, 174 


Easthampton, L. I., 60 

Edenton, N. C., described 
by Byrd, 34 

Endicott, John, brings 
party of housewrights, 47 

Erechtheum, 155 


Fairbanks House, oldest in 
the United States, 53 

Fenestration, discussion of, 
in Colonial houses, 98; of 
Stenton, 104; French 
methods in Canada, 122, 
133, 140; Palladian win- 
dows, 159; New Eng- 
land characteristics, 162; 
Pennsylvania plan, 163; 
problems of, to colonial 
builders, 163, 166; origin 
of Palladian, 186 

Ferry house, New Amster- 
dam, 71 

Finland, 
kill, 79 


on the Schuyl- 


222 


Finns, settlement by, on 
Schuylkill, 79 

Fletcher, Bannister Flight, 
quoted, 187 

Fort Beversrede, 76 

Fort Christina (Wilming- 
ton, Del.), first regularly 
laid out settlement on the 
ses 74; church at, 


Fort de la Montagne, Mon- 
treal, 122 

Fort Nassau, destroyed, 74 

Franklin, Benjamin, in 
Montreal, 138 

French colonial styles, 5; 
have been neglected, 109; 
survive in Canada to-day. 
109; made small use of 
wood, 117; oldest exist- 
ing types in Quebec Prov- 
ince, 118; Norman in 
inspiration, 118;  orna- 
mental dormers of, 120; 
characteristics of, 120 

‘Further Account of Penn- 


sylvania,” by William 
Penn, 81 
Gable, roofs, 52; many- 


gabled houses typical of 
New England, 52; Dutch 
put doorways in ends, 66, 
94; not unknown in 
Pennsylvania, 94 
Gallery, in Medfield meet- 
ing house, 56, 57; in Old 
Hingham meeting house, 


57 

Gambrel roofs, 52, 94; 
abandoned in New Eng- 
land, 164 

Gardens, colonial, in New 
England, 53; in New 
Netherlands, 68 

“General History of Vir- 
ginia,”’ Smith’s, 24 

Georgian, term as applied to 
early American architec- 
ture, 99; why ineffective, 
99 


INDEX 


Gibbs, James, Book of De- 
signs by, 96; influence 
of, upon American col- 
onial architecture, 96; 
his “Book of Architec- 
ture’ suggested design 
of Independence Hall, 
210 

Glass, high and scarce, 17; 
first settlers used oiled 
linen as substitute for, 18; 
imported from Europe, 
18; unknown by foun- 
ders of Virginia, 24; 
William Byrd, imports, 
31; becomes plentiful in 
England, 41 

Glass works, in the Middle 
colonies among earliest 
native industries, 18; in 
Medfield meeting house, 


56 

Gloria Dei Church, Phila- 
delphia; see Old Swedes 
Church. 

Graeme House, 96; interior 
design suggested by 
Gibbs, 96 

Graff, Jacob, bricklayer and 
builder, 199, 200 

Greek influence, 191 


H-type house, popular, 13, 
14; design of “Slate 
Roof House,” 89; Bart- 
ram House a modified 
copy of, 106 

Hachard, Madeleine, 132 

Hamilton, William, 156 

Harrison, John, carpenter 
and architect, 196, 197 

Harrison, Joseph, 197 

Harrison, William, descrip- 
tion of buildings in Eng- 
land in time of Elizabeth, 
38-43 

Henmarsh, Joseph, 197 

Hingham, Mass., 57 - 

Hissler, Andrew, 199 

Holinshead’s ‘‘ Chronicles, ” 
43 


INDEX 


Holm, Thomas Compan- 
ius, description of New 
Sweden, 77 

House Carpenters, Society 
of, in Philadelphia, 204; 
Book of Prices of, 204-205 

Housewrights, goodly rep- 
resentation among first 
settlers, 3; see Newbury- 
port. 

Hudde, Andreas, 76 


Independence Hall, 88 
Indians, habitations of, 21, 
23 


“Jamaica, History of,” 
quoted, 144-146 

Jamestown, 7; five houses 
erected in the first year, 
20; church and tavern 
erected, 20; lumber for 
first fort brought from 
England, 22; log church 
at, 25; lack of progress 
in, 26 

Jefferson, Thomas, 199 

Jogues, Father Isaac, 
French Jesuit Mission- 
ary, 66; describes New 
Netherlands, 66, 67 

Jones, Inigo, 18, 33 

Jones, Samuel, measurer, 
201 

Jut-by, unknown outside 
of New England, 52 


Kalm, Peter, Swedish trav- 
eller, describes dwellings 
of Sven Saener, 79 

Karakung, or Watermill 
Stream, mills erected by 
Swedes, 77-78 

Keith, Sir William, builds 
Graeme House, in Penn- 
sylvania, 95 

Kieft, William, Governor of 
New Netherlands, 76 

Kimball, Fiske, denies that 
log houses were erected 
by the early colonists, 49 


223 


Kingsessing, on the Schuyl- 
ve called New Fort, 
7 
Kirk, James, stone mason, 
builder of Graeme House, 
95 


L’abitation, Champlain’s 
first structures in Quebec, 
114; design of, as drawn 
by Champlain, 116 

Laurentian Mountains, 118 

Lean-to roofs, in Scrooby, 
and in New England, 43; 
in New England, 52; 
John Howard Payne 
house, example of, 60 

Le Muet, Piérre, 14 

Leybourne, William, 13 

Lime, lack of, in early New 
England, 38, 150 

Linen, oiled, substitute for 
window glass, 17 

Lintel, peculiar type of 
stone characteristic of 
Pennsylvania colonial de- 
sign, 280 

Log cabins, used by Swedes, 
9, 73, 79; Fiske Kimball 
on, 49; evidence of, 49; 
first structures in Con- 
necticut, 59 

Log church, first at James- 
town, 25-26 

Log houses of the Svens 
(Swanson), 80 

“London and Country 
Builder’s Vade Mecum,”’ 
17 

London Coffee House, Phil- 
adelphia, 94; Porteus 
may have designed, 94 

London, great fire of, influ- 
ence of, in modernizing 
architecture in England, 
11; bearing on English 
architectural design, 13; 
wooden buildings respon- 
sible for, 38; taught 
value of brick construc- 
tion, 82 


224 


London Virginia Company, 
19; sent out Captain 
John Smith, 20; record 
of, 26 

Long Island portioned be- 
tween Connecticut and 
New Netherlands, 57; 
eastern part of, settled by 
Connecticut men, 60 - 

Louisiana, much finer coun- 
try than Canada, 130; 
did not thrive so rapidly 
as Canada, 130; as a 
Spanish and as a French 
possession, 147 

Loxley House, Philadelphia, 


85 
Ludd, John, builder, 199 
Macpherson, Captain John, 
182 


McIntire, Samuel, architect 
and wood carver, 172-174 

Manayunk, log fort at, de- 
scribed by Holm, 77 

Manhattan Island, early 
Dutch post on, 62 

Mason, Robert, carpenter, 
5 


6 

Meadville, Mass., 194 

Measurers, 202 

““Measurers’ Guides,’’ 16 

Medfield, Mass., 55, 193 

Meeting house, in New Eng- 
land, 55; at Medfield, 
55; construction of, Med- 
field, 56 

Minuet, Peter, 74 

Montcalm, Maison de, Que- 
bec, 124 

Montreal regarded as inac- 
cessible, 127; post-colo- 
nial structures in, reveal 
British influence, 140 

Morris, Deborah, quoted, 81 

Mount Pleasant, Philadel- 
phia, 182, 191 

Mount Vernon, 34; an 
Americanization of an 
English country house 
of the period, 150; sug- 


INDEX 


gested by a British book 
of designs, 152 


Naaman’s Creek, Swedish 
block house on, 73 

Newbery, Francis, 210 

Newburyport, Mass., 
Housewrights of, ‘‘Gen- 
eral Rules of Work,’’ 206 

New Amstel, where “brick 
and stone are baked,” 79 

New Amsterdam, earliest 
known view of, 63; city 
tavern erected, 69 

New Fort (Kingsessing), 
77 

New France—(See under 
other heads also) method 
of building in both parts 
identical, 130; greatest 
efforts put forth on 
church structures, 1380 

New Netherland, _ ship 
named, brings first Dutch 
colonists, 63 

New Netherlands, settle- 
ment of, 62; described 
by Jesuit missionary, 66, 
67; Dutch company pub- 
lishes advice to settlers, 
67; surveyor of buildings 
of, appointed, 70; abol- 
ishes wooden chimneys, 
70; efforts of, to have va- 
cant lots in New Amster- 
dam improved with build- 
ings, 70 

New Orleans, long the only 
town of importance in 
Louisiana, 130; founded 
almost a century after 
Quebec, 132; in 1726, de- 
scribed, 32; methods of 
building construction in, 
132-133; greater part of 
original town burned in 
1788, 1384; description of, 
in 1803, 148 

Notre Dame de _ Bonse- 
cours, church of, in Mon- 
treal, 140 


INDEX 225 


Oak used for frames in New 
England, 50 

Oare Church, Somerset- 
shire, type followed by 
earliest Virginia churches, 


“Old Ship” church, Hing- 
ham, Mass., 57 

Old Swedes Church, Wil- 
mington, 7, 73, 77, 196 

Old Swedes Church, Phila- 
delphia, 7, 72, 86, 196 

Overhanging second- 
stories, in England, 44; 
in New England, 52 


Palladian Window, first, in 
the colonies, 159; use of, 
in New England, not 
happy, 160, 163, 164; 
used in dwelling architec- 
ture, 184; origin of, 186- 
190 

Palladio, Andrea, 13, 14, 
152; influenced the ped- 
imented portico, 155; 
Villa by, at Vicenza, 155; 
house of, 184; his Ar- 
cades, 187 

“‘Palladio, first book of Ar- 
chitecture of,’’ 14 

“‘Palladio Londinensis,”’ 16, 
17 

Pastorius, Francis Daniel, 
founder of Germantown, 
description of Philadel- 
phia in 1683, 80 

Patroons, system estab- 
lished by Dutch West 
India Company, 65; build 
frame houses for their 
tenants, 65 

Payne, John Howard, house, 
Long Island, 60 

Penn, John, 183 

Penn Mansion, 85, 86 

Penn, William, 10; de- 
scribes character of me- 
chanics in Philadelphia, 
81; Turner’s ‘“ Letter to,” 
84 


Pennsbury, 89 
Pennsylvania, a colony 
started in a business-like 
manner, 102; use of 
brick in, 102; in 1750, 
175; had largest number 
of men of wealth and 
position, 176 
Pennsylvania Hospital, 197 
Pent-eve, see Pent-house. 
Pent-house, feature of early 
Pennsylvania house, 84; 
approximate time of its 
introduction, 94 
Peters House, Belmont, 
Philadelphia, 182-183 
Philadelphia, described by 
Pastorius in 1683, 80; 
first city to be placed on 
a brick house basis, 82; 
settled, 82; type of house 
in early, 84; balconies to 
houses in, 84; more brick 
houses in, in 1700 than 
in all the colonies, 88; 
planned by Penn, 88; 
metropolis of British 
North American colonies, 
175; first Town Hall of 
primitive design, 94; 
metropolis of America 
in middle eighteenth cen- 
tury, 102 
Piazza, characteristic of the 
Southern house, 144; an- 
cestry of, found in Ja- 
maica, 144; purpose of, 
144 
Pierce-Johannot- Nichols 
House, Salem, Mass., 172 
Plantation house, typical, 
does not antedate the 
Revolution, 147, 154; 
Maryland type, 156 
Plaster, none used in early 
New England, 50 
Plastering, bill for, 200 
Plymouth Plantation, Brad- 
ford’s history of, 59 
Plymouth Virginia Com- 
pany, 19, 57 


226 


Porch, elaborated in New 
England about 1753, 160 


Port Royal, Frankford, 
Philadelphia, 190 
Porteus, James, 89, 94; 


brief sketch of, 95; death, 
197 

Portico, see Palladio. 

Powell, Samuel, 197 

Pratt, John, carpenter, 56 

Prices of building, 193-208 

Primatt, Stephen, 89 

Printz Hall, 77 

Printz, Johan, Governor of 
New Sweden, mansion of, 
76 

Puritans familiar with frame 
structures, 37, 43; lacked 
artistic feeling, 44; 
landed in autumn, 45; 
remained on_ shipboard 
while building their shel- 
ters, 45; erect fort, 45; 
first houses of, were of 
timber, 46; lacked ar- 
tistic taste, 54 

Pusey, Caleb, house of, at 
Upland, 86 


Quebec, Champlain erects 
first structures in, 110; 
founded in 1608, 114; 
oldest examples of colo- 
nial styles found in, 118; 
quaint buildings in, 124; 
Burke asserted it was 
better situated than 
Montreal, 128; its ex- 
tent in 1758, 128; Basil- 
ica at, 137 


Raynham Park, England, 
187 

““Ready-cut”” house in Con- 
necticut, 59 

Renselaer, rich Amsterdam 
merchant and a Patroon 
in New Amsterdam, 66 

Renselaerswick, colony de- 
scribed by Father Jogues, 
66, 67 


INDEX 


Rhoads, Samuel, 197 

Richelieu, Cardinal, 126 

Riley, Phil. M., quoted, 
171-172 

Roanoke Island settlement, 
ea 


Roofs, high pitched, in 
Quebec, 121; see Gam- 
brel, gable, lean-to, 
thatched, slate, tile. 


Salem, Mass, 171, 174 

Salmon, William, 16, 17 

Salmon, William, Jr., 16, 
207 

Scrooby, England, home of 
the Pilgrim fathers, 43 

Sharpe, Horatio, Governor 
of Maryland, 156 

Shingles, walls of, in earli- 
est New England houses, 
52; in Medfield meeting 
house, 56; in John How- 
ard Payne House, Long 
Island, 60 

Slate Roof House, 10, 88; 
largest mansion in Phila- 
delphia in 1698, 89; de- 
signed and built by Por- 
teus, 94; influence of its 


design, 100; Bartram 
House, more or less copy 
of, 106, 196 


Slavery introduced in Vir- 
ginia, 26 

Smart, John, carpenter, 196 

Smith, Captain John, 20, 
22; “General History of 
Virginia,” 24 

Smith, Robert, builder and 
architect, 194, 197 

Smithfield (Va.), church at, 


26, 27. 

Solitude, Philadelphia, 183 

Solomon’s Temple, influ- 
ence on Greek architec- 
ture, 16 

South Company of-Sweden, 
74 


Sowers Islands (Bermuda), 
24 


INDEX 


Spanish architecture, 5; in 
Louisiana, 147 

“Spite House,” Fort Be- 
versrede, so called, 76 

St. Anne de _ Beaupre, 
church of, restored, 136; 
peculiar design of steeple 
of, 137 

St. Lawrence, French farms 
on, described by Burke, 
128; bad navigation of, 
129 : 

St. Luke’s Church, Smith- 
field, Va., 27; restored, 
27; one of the earliest 
colonial types, 27, 31 

St. Mary’s Church, Bur- 
lington, 30 

St. Peter’s Church, Phila- 
delphia, 188 

St. Sulpice, Seminary of, 
Montreal, 122, 140 

Stadt Huys, of New Am- 
sterdam, 69; various pic- 
tures of, showing differ- 
ent construction, 69 

State House, Pennsylvania, 
188, 197, 202; design of, 
210 

Steeples, form of, in French 
Canadian churches, 137 

Stenton, mansion of James 
Logan, 104; finest ex- 
ample, excepting West- 
over, of early period, 104 

Stone buildings erected by 
French, 120, 135 

Stone chimneys on early 
houses in New Amster- 
dam, 70; in wooden 
cabins of Cartier at Que- 
bec, 112 

Stonechurch, built by Dutch 
in New Amsterdam, 66 

Stone lintel, see Lintel. 

Stone quarries near Phila- 
delphia, 177, 180 

Strachey, William, Secre- 
tary of Virginia, 22; his 
description of life in Vir- 
ginia, 22-24 


227 


Stucco, used in French 
Canada, 135 
Stuyvesant, Peter, Gover- 


nor of New Netherlands, 
6 


Sulgrave Church, 27 

Sven Saener (Swanson), 
home of, 79 

Swanson, see Sven Saener. 

Swedish Architecture, 7; 
log cabins, 9; surviving 
examples of, 72; block- 
houses, 76 


Temple on the Ilissus, 155 

Tenements, Elizabethan, 30 

Thatched roofs in Virginia, 
30; in England, 31; in 
New England, 52; in 
Quebec Province, 121 

Thornton, Dr. William, ar- 
chitect, 174 

Tile roofs, 30 

Tiles, Dutch, may have 
been early imported, 18 

Tinicum Island, 76, 77 

Towers, Norman types in 
Montreal, 122 


Ursulines, Order of, 132; 
Convent of, in New Or- 
leans, 134; Convent of, 
in Quebec, oldest build- 
ing in that city, 134 

Usher, Jacob, 197 


Van Tienhoven, Cornelius, 
pamphlet for colonists 
by, 67-69; advises ‘‘dug- 
out”’ houses, 68 

Venetian Windows, see Pal- 
ladian. 

Vernon House, Newport, 
167 

Vicenza, Palladio’s villa at, 
155; Basilica at, 186, 187 

Virginia, early settlers in, 
9; education meagre 
in, 10; extent of, 19; 
“started with a hundred 
bachelors,” 20; original 


228 


Virginia— 
settlers followed Indian 
practice of erecting wig- 
wams, 21; character of 
first settlers, 22; a Gen- 
eral History of, 24; how 
populated, 26; negro 
slavery introduced in, 26; 
in 1750, 175 

Virginia Companies, 19 

Virginia Company, 
Old, 26 

Vitruvius, 13 


The 


Wages paid in Massachu- 
setts in 1633, 47 

Walloons, settled in New 
Netherlands, 63; their 
character like that of the 
Puritans, 63; settled on 
the Delaware, 73 

Walnut Street Jail, Phila- 
delphia, 197 


Washington, General 
George, 150 
Watson, John F., 71; 


quoted, 80, 81, 85 

Webb, John, 13 

Weccacoe, 72 

Westover, Virginia, 10, 31; 
erected, 33; burned and 
restored, 33; design of, 
similar to Coleshill, 33; 
slate roof, 34; compared 
with Stenton, 104 

Whitehall, residence of 
Governor Sharpe, of 
Maryland, 156, 190 

White pine construction, 
53; longevity of, 57 

White Pine Bureau, 53 

“Whole Dutyof Man, The,”’ 
11 

Wigwams, used in Virginia, 
9, 21,22; inSalem, 50 

Windows, see Fenestration, 
Palladian. 


INDEX 


Winthrop, John, Governor 
of Massachusetts, 47 

Women, prominent among 
first settlers in Philadel- 
phia, assist in construc- 
tion of their houses, 81 

Wood, John, Bath architect, 
14 


Wooden chimneys in New 
England, 49; fires caused 
by, 50; ordered discon- 
tinued in Salem, 50; abol- 
ished in New Nether- 
lands, 70; finally ban- 
ished from New Am- 
sterdam, 71 

Wooden structures char- 
acteristic of New Eng- 
land architecture, 37; 
reason for, in New Eng- 
land, 38, 50; also char- 
acteristic of the London, 
in days of Elizabeth, 
38; chinks of, filled with 
clay, 48, 47; New Eng- 
land the home of, in 
America, 52; first build- 
ings in New Amsterdam, 
64; by the Swedes on the 
Delaware, 79; Cartier 
erects cabins near Que- 
bec, 110; never in gen- 
eral use in Canada, 117 

Woodford, — Philadelphia, 
190 / 

Woodlands, seat of William 
Hamilton, 156, 182, 183, 
190 

Woolley, Edmund, 197; his 
bill for raising the tower 
of Pennsylvania State 
House, 202 

Wren, Sir Christopher, 11, 
168, 170 

“Wyck,” in Germantown, 
86, 99 


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